RJ.'S  MOTHER 

AND    SOME    OTHER   PEOPLE 


MARGARET    DELAND 


'"EVERYBODY    IN    THIS    WORLD    IS    NICE,'    DECLARED    R.    J." 


R.  J.'S  MOTHER 
AND  SOME  OTHER 
PEOPLE  *  *  * 


BY 
MARGARET    DELAND 

AUTHOR  OF 

"THE  AWAKENING  OF  HELENA  RICHIE" 

"OLD     CHESTER      TALES" 

"  DR.  LAVENDAR'S  PEOPLE  " 

ETC.    ETC. 

ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS 
PUBLISHERS  «  MCMVIII 


Copyright,  1904, 1907, 1908,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

Copyright,  1904,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co. 
Copyright,  1905, 1908,  by  P.  F.  COLLIER  &  SON. 

All  rights  nserved. 
Published  May,  1908. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


R.  J.'s  MOTHER 3 

THE  MORMON 65 

MANY  WATERS 103 

THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON i5S 

A  BLACK  DROP 219 

THE  WHITE  FEATHER 275 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"'EVERYBODY  IN  THIS  WORLD  is  NICE,'  DE- 
CLARED   R.    J." Frontispiece 

"'l    HAVE   ALWAYS    SAID   HE   WOULD   DO   IT*"       .Facingp.     46 
"'l  MUST  HAVE   SOMETHING  TO  TAKE   CARE   OF,' 

HE    SAID" "  60 

"SHE  USED  TO  TALK  OP  HER  HUSBAND"    .     .       "         88 
"DORA  LOOKED  UP  AT  AUSTIN  AND  HELD  OUT 

TWO  SHAKING  HANDS  TO  HIM"  .     .     .     .       "         96 
"SHE  CAME  AND  KNELT  DOWN  BESIDE  HIM"     .  114 

"'A  MAN  FEELS  PRETTY  LONELY  WITHOUT  ANY 

— SISTERS,  DON'T  YOU  KNOW'"  ....  244 
"'AGNES,  i  CAN'T  HELP  IT,'  HE  SAID,  PASSION- 
ATELY.     'OH,    IF    YOU    COULD    ONLY    UN- 
DERSTAND!'"                          306 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 


WHEN  Nathaniel  Roberts  lost  his  wife,  her 
Blake  relations  were  confident  that  he 
would  marry  again  as  soon  as  decency  per- 
mitted—  "or  sooner,"  said  his  sister-in-law, 
with  a  hard  lip. 

There  was  a  shocked  murmur  from  an  el- 
derly cousin,  but  Miss  Blake  nodded  her  head. 
"Yes;  I  am  merely  watching  to  see  how  soon 
he  will  be  consoled." 

She  watched  from  the  very  day  of  the  funeral. 
Her  tearfully  keen  eyes,  under  heavy  black 
brows,  were  always  upon  the  young  widower 
to  detect  the  first  symptoms  of  consolation. 
"He  will  make  'Boy,'  as  he  calls  him,  the  ex- 
cuse," she  declared,  in  melancholy  confidence 
to  the  Blake  connection;  "widowers  always  do 
that.  They  say  they  have  to  'give  their  chil- 

3 


R.  J.'S  MOTHER 

dren  a  mother.'  As  if  Nettie's  own  sister  wasn't 
better  than  any  step-mother!" 

The  cousin  looked  doubtful.  "Suppose  you 
wanted  to  get  married  yourself,  Frances?"  she 
said.  "  Who  would  take  care  of  little  Nat  then  ?" 

"I  hope,  my  dear  Harriet,"  replied  Miss 
Blake,  "that  I  would  never  'want*  to  get  mar- 
ried. No  refined  woman  'wants*  to  get  mar- 
ried; she  may  marry — refined  women  do  mar- 
ry; my  sainted  Nettie  did.  But  I  am  sure  she 
never  'wanted'  to.  No;  I  shall  just  devote 
myself  to  Nettie's  child.  I  have  told  Nathan- 
iel that  he  and  the  baby  are  to  live  here — though 
it  is  very  troublesome  to  have  a  man  about; 
but  it's  a  duty  I  owe  poor  sister  Nettie.  I  did, 
however,  say  I  would  have  to  ask  him  not  to 
smoke  in  the  house.  So  he  is  coming." 

He  came;  a  lean,  silent,  soft-eyed  fellow, 
who  did  his  smoking  in  his  office,  and  who 
bounded  up-stairs  to  his  little  boy's  nursery 
the  minute  he  got  home  in  the  evening.  He 
would  have  been  glad  to  delay  his  departure 
in  the  morning  so  that  he  could  see  Boy  take 
his  bath,  but  Miss  Frances  frowned  at  the  sug- 
gestion. 

"It  would  be  most  improper,"  she  said;  "I 
always  test  the  temperature  of  the  water,  and 

4 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

watch  Ellen  when  she  bathes  the  child;  but 
I  could  not  be  present  if  you  were  in  the  room." 

The  father  did  not  insist.  Instead,  he  hur- 
ried home  every  night  in  time  to  give  Boy  his 
bottle,  and  he  used  to  be  so  long  over  the  ten- 
der task  that  he  was  often  late  for  dinner,  which 
did  not  endear  him  to  his  sister-in-law.  "And, 
oh  dear!  the  cigar  smoke  in  his  clothing!"  said 
Miss  Blake,  with  delicate  disgust. 

Miss  Blake  had  other  reasons  for  disgust;  it 
appeared  that  Davis,  the  wet-nurse,  was  not 
"Mrs."  Davis.  When  Miss  Blake  discovered 
this,  which  she  did  by  judicious  questioning  as 
to  "  Mr."  Da  vis's  business,  she  promptly  ordered 
the  young  woman  out  of  the  house.  Her  little 
nephew,  spurning  an  offered  bottle,  howled 
upon  an  empty  stomach ;  but  though  the  noise 
he  made  was  very  distressing,  she  bore  it  rather 
than  have  Nettie's  child  and  her  own  roof  de- 
filed by  such  a  presence.  When  her  brother- 
in-law  came  home  in  the  evening,  she  told  him 
what  she  had  done — of  course,  with  the  deli- 
cacy proper  to  such  a  subject — and  his  annoy- 
ance was  only  another  proof  of  the  difference 
between  men  and  women. 

"It  wasn't  our  business,"  he  said,  angrily; 
"as  long  as  she  took  such  good  care  of  Boy, 

5 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

how  did  it  concern  us?  Besides,  poor  girl!  the 
doctor  told  me  she  was  heart-broken  at  losing 
her  own  baby,  and  Boy  was  a  comfort  to  her." 

"You  knew  it!" 

"Of  course  I  knew  it." 

"  And  you  engaged  her!"  gasped  Miss  Frances. 

"  I  was  looking  for  a  wet-nurse,  not  a  saint," 
he  said,  dryly.  But  he  made  no  further  pro- 
test. It  was  Frances's  house,  and  she  had  a 
right  to  say  who  should  be  in  it. 

And,  besides,  so  long  as  she  made  Boy  com- 
fortable, he  was  not  interested  in  her  moral 
standards.  Boy  was  his  one  absorbing  thought ; 
and  in  all  that  first  year  of  devotion  to  his  lit- 
tle son,  not  even  the  watchful  aunt  saw  a  shad- 
ow of  consolation  as  big  as  a  woman's  hand  on 
the  horizon  of  his  heart.  He  did  not  make  the 
slightest  effort  to  "give  the  child  a  mother"; 
and  then,  suddenly,  the  possibility  of  doing  so 
was  taken  from  him:  Boy  died.  "Because  his 
father  would  have  the  window  open  right  by 
the  crib,"  Frances  Blake  said,  weeping  in  her 
heavy  crapes.  And  then  she  told  the  Blake 
relations  that  it  almost  seemed  as  if  Providence 
had  taken  the  poor  child  to  heaven,  to  his  own 
lovely  mother,  to  save  him  from  his  father's 
faithlessness ;  "  for,  of  course,  now  he'll  marry 

6 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

again ;  widowers  always  marry  when  they  have 
no  children;  they  make  loneliness  the  excuse. 
He  has  left  me,  you  know,  and  gone  to  house- 
keeping by  himself;  that  is  the  first  step." 

And  yet,  though  this  first  step  was  taken, 
and  the  "decent"  period  had  certainly  elapsed, 
and  the  excuse  of  loneliness  following  the  loss 
of  his  child  was  obvious  to  everybody,  the  faith- 
less husband  remained  single.  Two  years — 
three  years — five  years!  Miss  Frances  Blake 
softened;  then,  suddenly,  hardened. 

"I  know  men!"  she  said;  "Nathaniel  would 
marry  again  unless — unless  there  were  some 
unworthy  reason.  Do  you  remember  his  shock- 
ing indifference  when  I  found  out  about  that 
depraved  woman,  Nat's  wet-nurse?  And,  my 
dear,  do  you  know,  I  heard — (I  am  not  curious, 
but  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  find  out  about  the 
creature) ;  Nathaniel  paid  her  board  until  she 
got  another  place!  I  taxed  him  with  it,  and  he 
admitted  that  he  had  'looked  after  her.'  A 
very  suspicious  phrase  for  a  man  to  use,  it 
strikes  me." 

"I  think  it  shows  a  kind  heart,"  the  Blake 
cousin  murmured. 

And  Miss  Frances  said,  coldly:  "Beware  of 
allowing  charity  to  degenerate  into  laxity,  Har- 

7 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

riet.  No;  I  shouldn't  wonder  at  all  if  some 
horrid  affair  keeps  him  bound,  for  I've  recog- 
nized from  the  very  first  that  he  is  the  kind  of 
man  who  marries  again." 

But  "  horrid  affairs  "  always  leak  out,  in  time ; 
and  when  ten  years  passed,  and  twelve,  and  still 
Nathaniel  Roberts's  reputation  would  have  been 
— except  in  regard  to  smoking  —  a  credit  to 
Caesar's  wife,  Miss  Blake  had  to  back  down. 
She  asked  him  to  dinner  every  other  Sunday 
evening,  instead  of  once  a  month,  and  she  told 
all  the  Blake  relations  that  his  faithfulness 
was  beautiful — "Though  probably,"  said  Miss 
Frances,  "  he  isn't  very  susceptible.  He  doesn't 
seem  to  care  about  anybody.  And  do  you  re- 
member how  composed  he  was  when  dear  lit- 
tle Nat  died  ?  Indifferent,  uncharitable  people 
would  say." 

"'Still  waters,'"  the  cousin  began,  mildly; 
but  Nathaniel's  sister-in-law  made  an  impa- 
tient gesture. 

"Oh,  Harriet!  As  if  a  father  who  cared, 
could  look  down  into  his  baby's  coffin,  and  never 
shed  a  tear.  That's  what  Nathaniel  did.  I 
watched  him,  to  see  how  he  was  taking  it:  not 
a  tear!  Though  you  would  think  that  mere 
self-reproach  about  opening  the  window  by  the 

8 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

crib  might  have  brought  tears.  But  how  time 
flies!  Do  you  realize  that  the  226.  was  Nat's 
twelfth  birthday?  I  don't  believe  Nathaniel 
ever  thinks  of  it!" 

The  Blake  cousin  was  silent.  In  her  own 
mind  she  harked  back  to  something  that  hap- 
pened on  the  22d — a  chance  encounter  with  Mr. 
Roberts  in  a  toy-shop.  .  .  .  Nathaniel,  his  legs 
tucked  around  the  pedestal  of  a  revolving-stool, 
his  near-sighted  eyes  peering  into  the  mechan- 
ism of  a  small  steam-engine,  was  speaking 
anxiously  to  the  clerk:  'You  don't  think  it's 
too  complicated  for  a  boy  of  twelve?" 

"Oh  no,  sir;  why,  last  year,  for  his  eleventh 
birthday,  you  got  that  automatic  steamboat 
for  him.  He  made  that  go,  didn't  he?" 

Nathaniel  mumbled  something,  and  then, 
glancing  up,  found  the  elderly  Blake  cousin  be- 
side him  and  blushed  to  the  roots  of  his  hair. 
"Why,  Harriet,"  he  stammered — "what  are 
you  doing  in  a  toy-shop?" 

"What  are  you  doing?"  she  retorted,  laugh- 
ing; and  the  salesman,  with  the  intimacy  of 
the  toy-counter,  offered  a  genial  explanation: 
"The  gentleman  buys  his  little  boy's  birthday 
present  here  every  year." 

Miss  Harriet  was  stricken  into  silence; 
9 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Nathaniel  said,  briefly,  "I'll  take  the  engine"; 
and  as  they  stood  waiting  for  the  package, 
neither  of  them  spoke.  On  the  street,  as  he 
was  helping  her  into  a  car,  he  said,  tinder  his 
breath,  "I  get  things  to  give  away  on  his 
birthday.  Harriet,"  he  added,  so  suddenly 
that  his  voice  was  harsh,  "do  you  think  that — 
that  his  crib  was  too  near  the  window?" 

"No!  of  course  not,"  she  said;  "Nathaniel, 
don't  have  such  thoughts;  they're  not  safe." 
And  then  her  car  came  along,  and  she  had  to 
get  in.  As  she  took  her  seat  she  slipped  her 
handkerchief  under  her  veil  and  wiped  her 
eyes.  She  never  told  Frances.  .  .  .  And  without 
being  told,  how  could  Frances  guess  that  the 
wound  of  his  boy's  death  had  healed  into  a  scar 
that  was  callous  to  all  small  interests  or  troubles 
— his  own  or  other  people's? 

Indeed,  Miss  Blake's  charge,  of  not  caring  for 
anybody,  was  pretty  well  founded.  He  had  no 
social  ties ;  sometimes  he  dropped  into  his  club, 
and  sat  smoking  and  listening  to  other  men's 
talk;  but  he  never  invited  anybody  to  come 
home  with  him  and  take  pot-luck;  first,  be- 
cause the  pot  was  not  very  good,  for  he  was  at 
the  mercy  of  a  working  housekeeper  with  no 
cold-mutton  imagination;  but  mostly  because 

10 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

he  really  would  not  have  known  what  to  do 
with  a  guest.  Small  talk  did  not  interest  him, 
nor,  for  that,  did  great  talk  either ;  and  in  his 
gentle  selfishness  (of  which,  like  most  passively 
selfish  people,  he  was  entirely  unconscious)  it 
never  occurred  to  him  to  make  an  effort  to  talk 
of  things,  small  or  great,  which  might  interest 
other  people.  In  fact,  the  empty  years  had  so 
dulled  and  dried  his  mind  that  all  he  thought 
of  was  his  business  and,  perhaps,  the  dining  with 
Miss  Frances  every  fourth  Sunday  —  until  his 
faithfulness  won  him  that  fortnightly  invitation. 
Once  a  year,  on  the  226.  of  November,  he  spent 
a  couple  of  hours  at  Bailey's  Toy  Emporium; 
and  that  evening,  bolting  his  library  door,  and 
clearing  his  big,  shabby  writing-table,  he  looked 
the  toys  over.  He  would  set  out  a  regiment  of 
tin  soldiers,  and  start  up  the  automatic  boat, 
and  piece  a  map  together,  and  perhaps  end  with 
a  game  of  parchesi.  Then  he  would  pack  them 
all  up  again,  and  the  next  morning  hand  the 
bundle  to  his  washerwoman  or  to  the  janitor  of 
his  office-building,  to  dispose  of.  ...  But  in  all 
the  years  since  Boy  died  he  had  not  come  near 
enough  to  his  fellows  to  feel  either  their  calam- 
ities or  their  interests,  and  in  his  dull  routine 
of  comfort  he  had  had  none  of  his  own  to  feel. 

a  II 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Then,  shortly  after  little  Nat's  fourteenth 
birthday,  a  personal  calamity  interested  him 
most  keenly;  with  it  comfort  departed — but 
in  departing  opened  a  door  in  the  enclosing 
walls  of  selfishness.  .  .  . 

On  the  night  of  the  226.  of  November  he 
had  strained  his  eyes  over  a  puzzle  of  colored 
crystals,  and  after  that  he  began  to  notice  how 
very  easily  his  eyes  became  tired.  By-and-by 
he  had  to  give  up  reading  his  paper  after  din- 
ner, so  he  sat  and  smoked  an  inordinate  num- 
ber of  cigars  before  he  went  to  bed.  It  was  so 
stupid,  this  endless  smoking,  that  he  really 
welcomed  that  fortnightly  dinner  with  his  sister- 
in-law.  He  said  to  himself  once  or  twice  that 
he  must  see  an  oculist ;  but  he  kept  putting  it 
off,  waiting  for  a  break  in  the  office  routine. 
Then,  suddenly,  before  the  break  came,  a  sharp 
attack  of  pain  drove  him  to  Dr.  Tinker's  in  spite 
of  himself. 

"Confound  it,  Roberts,"  Tinker  said,  can- 
didly, "a  man  of  your  years  ought  to  have  had 
sense  enough  to  come  and  see  me  before  this! 
You  are  to  come  now  every  day  for  a  while — 
understand?" 

Roberts  understood,  and  frowned;  but  after 
a  fortnight  of  dancing  attendance  on  Tinker,  and 

12 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

seesawing  between  being  better  and  worse,  the 
physician  began  to  look  puzzled — and  anxious, 
too. 

"I  don't  like  that  optic  nerve,"  said  Tinker. 

"Anything  wrong?"  Nathaniel  inquired, 
faintly  interested. 

"  Wrong!  Well — "  then  he  stopped,  and  be- 
came professional.  "We've  just  got  on  to  a 
queer  thing  in  eyes,  and  this  condition  of  yours 
suggests  it.  I  want  you  to  go  East  and  see  one 
of  the  big  men.  I — well,  I  am  not  just  up  on 
the  latest  treatment.  Yes.  You've  got  to 
consult  Jardine.  Better  start  to-morrow." 

But  of  course  he  could  not  start  to-morrow. 
A  man  can't  be  a  shaft-horse  for  innumerable 
people  and  institutions,  and  drop  his  work  be- 
cause his  oculist  raises  his  finger — even  if  he 
does  not  mean  to  be  away  from  home  for  more 
than  ten  days,  which  was  the  limit  Nathaniel 
set  himself.  Dr.  Tinker  did  not  set  any  limit. 
"You  do  what  Jardine  tells  you,"  he  said; 
"he'll  let  you  know  when  you  can  come  home." 

"  You  don't  think  he  will  keep  me  more  than 
a  fortnight,  do  you?"  Nathaniel  said,  anxiously; 
and  Tinker  said  he  didn't  know.  "  Hurry  up 
and  get  off,"  Tinker  said;  "that's  all  I  have  to 
say." 

'3 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

So  Nathaniel  hurried.  He  crammed  ten 
days'  work  into  two,  promised  Miss  Frances  to 
write  once  a  week,  did  his  clumsy  packing,  and 
set  off.  No  doubt  the  hurry  made  things  just 
a  little  worse.  At  any  rate,  when  the  great 
Jardine  had  finished  plumbing  the  poor  eyes 
with  the  fierce  electric  beam,  and  making 
many  other  uncomfortable  examinations,  he 
was  as  disinclined  as  Tinker  himself  to  set  a 
limit  to  the  time  his  patient  must  be  absent 
from  his  office.  He  explained  that  Mr.  Roberts's 
condition  was  unusual — "and  very  interesting, 
very  interesting!"  said  Jardine,  with  obvious 
satisfaction.  Then  he  said  that  it  would  be 
necessary  for  him  to  watch  the  case  closely,  and 
it  would  be  many  weeks — perhaps  months — 
before  the  treatment  which  might  (or  might 
not)  preserve  Mr.  Roberts's  sight  would  be 
finished. 

The  knowledge  that  he  had  an  interesting 
disease  did  not  impress  the  patient.  "But," 
he  protested,  with  real  agitation,  "  I  can't  pos- 
sibly leave  my  business  for  any  such  length  of 
time!" 

"You're  liable  to  be  blind  if  you  don't,"  the 
great  man  told  him. 

Roberts  got  up  and  walked  to  the  window; 

14 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

it  was  several  minutes  before  he  turned  round 
and  faced  the  doctor;  when  he  did,  he  said, 
briefly:  "All  right." 

Jardine  glanced  at  him.  "Have  a  drink  of 
whiskey?"  he  said,  kindly. 

But  Nathaniel  shook  his  head.  "I'm  all 
right,"  he  said;  and  then  he  listened  with  stolid 
attention  to  the  oculist's  minute  directions. 
An  hour  afterwards,  in  his  bleak  hotel  bed- 
room, the  poor  man  sat  down  in  heavy  silence, 
to  reflect  upon  the  situation.  ...  At  first  the 
knock-down  statement  of  absence  from  business 
was  his  clearest  thought.  Business!  How  could 
he  drop  all  his  affairs  ?  He  said  to  himself  that 
it  was  out  of  the  question! — this  confounded 
specialist  didn't  know  what  he  was  talking 
about.  "Easy  enough  for  him  to  say  'drop 
business.'  What's  he  know  about  it?  I  can't 
pitch  off  responsibilities  just  to  please  him." 
But  each  time  he  reached  this  conclusion  Dr. 
Jardine's  calm,  impersonal  voice  sounded  in  his 
ear:  "You're  liable  to  be  blind  if  you  don't." 

That  gray  December  afternoon,  darkening 
into  snowy  night,  was  a  bad  time  for  Nathaniel 
Roberts.  The  oculist's  statement  had  shaken 
him  out  of  his  lethargy  of  comfort;  his  mind 
began  to  prick  and  tingle,  just  as  a  sleeping 

15 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

hand  or  foot  tingles  when  it  wakes  up.  And 
in  this  sharp  awakening  he  recognized  the  in- 
evitable: business  must  be  dropped.  There 
was  no  escape.  Common-sense,  lurking  behind 
his  dismayed  consciousness  of  inconvenience, 
told  him  so.  Then,  little  by  little,  the  shadow 
of  something  graver  than  inconvenience  began 
to  close  about  him:  Suppose  he  did  go  back 
and  finish  up  these  immediate  duties,  it  might 
be  too  late  then  to  save  his  eyes.  Jardine  had 
said  so,  plainly.  He  would  be  blind ;  and  what 
would  he  do  then?  He  had  money  enough  to 
keep  him  out  of  the  poor-house,  but  he  would 
be  a  burden  to  somebody — even  if  it  were  only 
a  hired  somebody.  "  Though  it  would  probably 
be  Frances,"  he  said  to  himself ; "  Frances  always 
does  her  duty."  The  shadow  grew  very  deep. 
...  At  first  he  did  not  know  what  it  was ;  then 
he  recognized  it,  and  knew  that  it  was  Fear:  he 
could  not  remember  having  been  afraid  since 
the  night  Frances  told  him  Boy  was  going  to 
die,  "  because  you  opened  that  window  beside 
the  crib."  Yes ;  he  was  afraid ;  and  suddenly  he 
knew  that  he  was  not  only  afraid,  but  lonely. 
He  had  not  been  lonely  since  the  loneliness  of 
Boy's  loss  had  settled  into  numbness.  Fear 
and  loneliness  drove  him  to  his  feet  and  spurred 

16 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

him  into  aimless  pacing  up  and  down.  He 
wished  he  had  somebody  to  speak  to.  The  long, 
narrow  hotel  room,  with  its  majestic  black-wal- 
nut furniture,  its  gilded  radiator,  its  one  sheet  of 
plate-glass  smothered  in  stiff  lace  curtains,  had 
not  a  human  suggestion  about  it.  He  got  up 
abruptly,  and  opened  the  window  to  let  some 
fresh  air  into  the  dry,  "knocking"  steam-heat. 
The  curtains  blew  back  into  the  room  behind 
him,  and  sometimes  a  snowflake  rested  on  his 
sleeve,  or  touched  his  flushed  face  like  a  cold 
finger-tip.  He  stood  there  until  he  was  thor- 
oughly chilled,  for  it  was  something  to  know  that 
there  were  men  and  women  down  in  the  dark 
canon  of  the  street,  even  though  he  could  not 
distinguish  them.  The  desire  for  human  con- 
tact was  a  sort  of  physical  dismay.  As  he  look- 
ed down  at  the  great  hurrying  city  in  its  net 
of  arc-lights,  he  suddenly  shivered.  "Nobody 
cares,"  he  said;  and  added:  "I'm  going  to  be 
blind."  The  fact  was,  having  had  nothing  to 
hope  for  in  fourteen  years,  he  had  lost  the  habit 
of  hoping,  so  now  he  did  not  know  how  to  reas- 
sure himself;  "I  am  going  to  be  blind;  Frances 
will  take  care  of  me,"  he  said.  A  snowflake 
blew  in,  and  melted  on  his  cheek.  He  set  his 
teeth,  and  went  back  to  his  chair. 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Well,  blind  or  not,  he  must  think  out  direc- 
tions for  his  office ;  that  was  the  first  step  into 
a  bleak  idleness  which  might  (or  might  not) 
preserve  his  sight.  He  did  not  touch  the 
electric-light  button,  but  sat  with  closed  eyes, 
making  little  crooked  notes  that  ran  up-hill 
across  the  page  of  his  memorandum-book.  In 
the  midst  of  his  planning,  something  bumped 
against  his  door,  and  there  was  the  clink  of  ice 
in  a  pitcher.  Absorbed  as  he  was,  the  humor 
of  being  served  just  at  that  particular  minute 
with  ice-water  did  strike  him ;  he  gave  a  sort  of 
grunt  of  amusement,  and  said,  " Come  in!" 

The  boy  who  carried  the  clinking  pitcher  set 
it  down  on  the  marble-topped  table  with  a 
thud.  "Gorry!"  he  remarked,  "three  flights 
of  that  weighs  some.  But  of  course  they  can't 
let  you  go  up  in  the  passenger-elevator.  The 
water  might  spill  on  the  ladies'  clothes.  Say, 
shall  I  turn  on  the  light?" 

"No,  thank  you,"  Roberts  said,  and  fumbled 
in  his  waistcoat-pocket. 

"  I  wish  they'd  let  me  work  the  freight-eleva- 
tor," the  boy  confided;  "I  could,  perfectly  well. 
I'd  like  that  better  than  climbing  the  stairs." 

"Would  you?"  Roberts  inquired,  languidly, 
and  snapped  his  dime  down  on  the  table. 

18 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"That's  forty  cents  to-day!"  the  boy  said, 
joyously;  "sure  you  don't  want  any  light? 
Pretty  dark  in  here." 

"The  light  bothers  my  eyes,"  Roberts  ex- 
plained, and  wondered  at  himself  for  being 
confidential. 

"That's  too  bad!"  the  boy  said,  earnestly; 
"I've  got  some  old  eye-drops  at  my  house. 
I  had  sore  eyes  last  year.  I'll  bring  'em  in  to- 
morrow." He  came  and  stood  by  the  forlorn 
man,  and  rattled  his  forty  cents  cheerfully  in  his 
pocket.  "Maybe  they'll  let  me  off,  down  at 
the  office,  now,  and  I  could  run  home  and  get 
'em,  before  mother  goes  to  the  theatre." 

"  Does  your  mother  go  often  to  the  theatre  ?" 
Nathaniel  asked,  to  make  conversation.  He 
was  incapable  of  snubbing  such  friendly  exu- 
berance, even  if  it  had  bored  him;  but  indeed 
it  did  not  bore  him. 

"Why,"  said  the  boy,  surprised  at  his  igno- 
rance, "she  goes  every  night!  And  two  mats. 
I  used  to  go  along.  Course,  now,  I  can't — ex- 
cept to  bring  her  home." 

"Your  mother  is  an  actress?"  Roberts  said, 
vaguely. 

"  Yes ;  oh,  she's  a  peach !  And  she's  splendid, 
too.  You  ought  to  see  her.  Say,  why  don't 

19 


R.  J.'S  MOTHER 

you  go  and  see  her  ?  It  would  make  you  cheer- 
ful to  see  mother,"  he  ended,  earnestly. 

"Touch  that  button,  will  you?"  Nathaniel 
said;  he  covered  his  eyes  for  a  minute  as  the 
white  light  sprang  from  the  ceiling,  and  then, 
blinking  a  little,  he  looked  at  his  visitor.  It 
was  not  a  remarkable  face,  but  it  was  a  boy's 
face.  "How  old  are  you?"  he  said. 

"  Almost  fifteen ;  I  was  fourteen  on  the  twenty- 
second  of  November.  An'  then  mother  said 
I  could  be  a  bell-hopper;  mother  didn't  like  it 
much,"  he  added,  candidly,  "but  I  jollied  her 
into  it." 

Nathaniel  was  not  listening.  ...  Of  course, 
there  was  no  suggestion  of  a  resemblance — but 
he  was  born  on  the  22d  of  November,  and  he 
was  fourteen  years  old !  "  What's  your  name  ?" 
he  asked.  The  boy  said,  proudly,  that  his  name 
was  R.  J.  Holmes. 

"I'm  named  after  my  father.  He's  dead. 
Mother  calls  me  '  Dicky.'  Well,  you  know, 
ladies  are  keen  on  nicknames ;  so  I  let  her.  But 
my  name's  R.  J.  Holmes." 

Nathaniel  snapped  down  another  dime. 
"  Guess  that  belongs  to  you,  too,  R.  J.,"  he  said. 

R.  J.  picked  it  up  with  alacrity.  "Every- 
body in  this  world,"  he  declared,  "  is  nice.  I've 

20 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

noticed  that  all  my  life — but  specially  to-day. 
Fifty  cents!"  At  the  door,  with  his  hand  on 
the  knob,  he  turned  to  say,  heartily,  "Good- 
bye!" 

When  he  had  gone  Nathaniel  gave  a  faint 
chuckle ;  the  unwonted  sound  astonished  him  so 
much  that  it  was  several  minutes  before  he  took 
up  his  own  weary  affairs. 

If  you  break  your  leg,  or  your  heart,  why 
perhaps  bed  is  the  proper  place  for  you;  but 
to  lie  in  bed  until  noon,  when  you  have  nothing 
on  earth  the  matter  with  you,  is  maddening — 
especially  if  for  forty-five  years  you  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  getting  up  in  the  morning  at 
6.30.  Mr.  Roberts,  without  a  soul  to  speak  to, 
with  no  newspaper,  with  nothing  to  do  except 
to  drink  a  glass  of  milk  at  eight,  at  ten,  at 
twelve;  with  nothing  to  look  at  except  the  lace 
curtains  which,  blowing  back  and  forth  in  front 
of  the  half -open  window,  permitted  an  occa- 
sional glimpse  of  chimney-pots  and  snowy  roofs 
— Roberts,  after  four  hours  of  it,  said  a  bad 
word.  He  added  the  name  of  the  distinguished 
specialist.  Then  he  reflected  that  as  he  had 
one  hour  and  thirty  minutes  more  of  this  tom- 
foolery, he  had  better  try  to  sleep;  but  just  at 

21 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

that  moment  the  chilly  bump  of  ice-water 
sounded  at  his  door.  He  turned  his  head  with 
a  sigh  of  relief ;  it  was  something  to  see  a  human 
creature,  but  to  see  R.  J.,  whom  he  had  entirely 
forgotten,  was  almost  an  interest.  "Hello!" 
he  said. 

"I  got  the  eye-drops,"  the  bell-boy  said, 
breathlessly;  "I  couldn't  bring  'em  up  before, 
we  are  so  busy!  And  look  here" — he  put  down 
his  clinking  white  pitcher,  and  unbuttoned  his 
coat  carefully.  From  his  bosom  he  lifted  out  a 
thin  cat,  that  meowed  faintly,  and  clutched  at 
his  sleeve  with  feeble  claws — "lookl"  saidR.  J. 
"Here's  a  perfectly  good  cat  just  starving 
to  death!  I  saw  her  when  I  went  to  get  the 
pitchers — and  I  was  so  afraid  the  hoppers  might 
hit  her  a  lick — they  are  bully  fellows,  but 
mother  says  boys  don't  understand  cats.  So 
I  brought  her  up  for  you  to  keep  for  me  till  I  go 
home  to-night." 

"I?"  said  Nathaniel,  blankly;  "but  I—" 

"  Hullo !  milk !"  cried  R.  J. ,  regarding  Roberts's 
untasted  glass,  joyously;  " I  was  afraid  I'd  have 
to  go  and  pinch  some,  somehow,  down-stairs." 

He  had  put  the  forlorn  animal  on  the  heavy 
Marseilles  quilt,  which  Nathaniel,  being  a  man, 
had  not  had  sense  enough  to  remove,  though  it 

22 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

had  occurred  to  him  to  liken  it  to  peine  forte  et 
dure.  The  cat  crawled  along  its  board-like  ex- 
panse for  a  few  steps,  then  stopped  and  uttered 
a  thin  wail. 

"Let's  feed  her,"  the  boy  said;  "she's  hun- 
gry. Will  she  drink  out  of  your  tumbler,  do 
you  think?  Or  had  we  better  put  the  milk  in 
the  wash-basin?" 

"I  was  just  going  to  drink  it  myself,"  the 
cat's  astonished  host  ventured. 

The  boy  had  seated  himself  on  the  bed,  and 
was  urging  the  cat  to  take  the  milk.  "Poor 
kitty,  poor  kitty,"  he  encouraged  her.  The 
little  pink  tongue  began  to  lap,  fitfully,  then 
eagerly.  "Fine!"  R.  J.  said;  then,  holding  the 
tumbler  in  one  grimy  hand,  he  began  to  burrow 
with  the  other  in  various  pockets ;  "  I  got  your 
eye-drops;  but  I  had  to  look  after  the  cat  first." 

"Of  course,"  Nathaniel  agreed;  "but,  my 
boy,  I  mustn't  take  your  medicine — though  it's 
very  kind  in  you  to  bring  it  to  me ;  unless  you'll 
let  me  pay — " 

R.  J.  looked  annoyed.  "I'm  taking  your 
milk  for  my  cat,"  he  said,  coldly;  and  Na- 
thaniel was  silenced. 

"I'd  put  'em  in  for  you,"  said  R.  J.,  "just 
the  way  mother  did  for  me;  but  I've  got  to  go 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

down-stairs;  we're  doing  a  land-office  business 
this  morning.  You  just  let  her  run  round,  will 
you?  You  put  in  six  drops.  Honest,  do  you 
think  you  can  do  it  yourself?"  he  hesitated. 

And  Nathaniel,  alarmed,  said,  hastily,  that 
he  was  sure  he  could.  When  he  was  alone  with 
the  cat,  he  realized  that  fifteen  long  minutes 
had  been  consumed.  A  little  later  his  uninvited 
guest  placed  her  fore  feet  on  his  breast,  blinked 
and  squatted  down;  then,  her  paws  tucked  un- 
der her,  she  began  to  purr. 

"I  wonder  will  she  get  up  at  twelve?"  Na- 
thaniel thought  anxiously.  He  looked  at  his 
watch,  and  then  at  the  cat,  and  then  at  his 
watch  again.  Between-times  he  reflected  upon 
the  bell-boy  who  had  been  born  on  Boy's  birth- 
day. Suddenly  it  occurred  to  him  that  he 
might  arrange  to  have  R.  J.  detailed  to  wait 
upon  him;  that  would  be  better  than  the  man 
servant  that  Jardine  had  suggested;  Nathaniel, 
solitary  creature  that  he  was,  had  been  em- 
barrassed at  the  thought  of  an  attendant  who 
would  be  in  constant  evidence.  Yes ;  that  was 
a  good  idea ;  he  could  bounce  the  boy  whenever 
he  wanted  to  be  alone.  "Cat,"  he  said,  plead- 
ingly, "don't  you  feel  like  moving?  It's  five 
minutes  past  twelve!" 

24 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

The  arrangement  to  have  all  of  R.  J.'s  time 
was  very  easily  made  at  the  office  in  the  rotunda 
down-stairs.  Yes;  certainly  the  gentleman  in 
No.  302  could  have  Holmes  if  he  wanted  him. 
As  for  the  boy,  though  depressed  at  being  re- 
moved, even  temporarily,  from  an  exciting  ca- 
reer, he  made  the  best  of  it  with  a  fairly  cheer- 
ful upper  lip;  "for,  honest,  I'm  sorry  about  your 
eyes,"  he  sympathized.  He  suggested  that  he 
should  lend  Mr.  Roberts  the  cat,  which  he  had 
taken  to  his  own  home;  when  the  offer  was 
declined  he  sighed.  "  I  could  have  played  with 
her  out  in  the  hall,"  he  said.  He  spent  most  of 
his  time  in  a  chair  just  outside  the  door  of  No. 
302,  and  without  even  a  cat,  it  was  pretty  lone- 
ly. It  occurred  to  him  that  if  Mr.  Roberts 
knew  this,  he  would  be  invited  to  sit  inside. 
So  he  mentioned  it,  and  the  invitation  followed. 

Nathaniel's  days  were  full  of  the  routine  of 
treatment,  the  responsibilities  of  which  weighed 
heavily  upon  R.  J.  He  considered  it  his  busi- 
ness to  know  the  hours  of  milk,  walk,  rest,  etc., 
and  he  kept  the  patient  to  them  with  a  strict- 
ness which,  if  a  little  teasing  at  times,  was  very 
friendly.  Of  course,  the  friendliness  of  a  child 
or  an  animal  is  amusing,  but  it  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  flattering  thing  in  the  world.  Nathaniel 

25 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Roberts,  at  first  faintly  diverted,  was  by-and- 
by  flattered;  and  then,  down  under  that  old 
scar,  he  was  touched.  Meantime  the  routine 
went  on.  Nathaniel's  weekly  letter  to  his  sister- 
in-law  was  written  in  R.  J.'s  round,  rather 
smeary  hand,  and  was,  in  mercy  to  the  boy, 
short.  It  was  pretty  much  the  same  every 
week: 

"Mr.  Roberts  says  to  say  he  is  getting  along  very 
well.     I  am  to  take  care  of  him.     I  used  to  be  a  bell- 
boy.    He  says  New  York  is  very  cold.     He  says  he 
don't  know  when  he  can  come  back. 
"Yours  truly, 

"R.  J.  HOLMES." 

This  "blank"  kept  Miss  Blake  posted,  and 
though  it  offended  her  delicacy  to  know  that 
her  anwering  communications  would  have  to 
be  read  aloud  by  this  evidently  illiterate  per- 
son, she  did  not  on  that  account  curtail  their 
length,  or  spare  her  brother-in-law  the  recital 
of  the  various  inconveniences  resulting  from 
his  absence.  R.  J.  hated  the  sight  of  her  square 
blue  envelope,  but  he  ploughed  through  its  con- 
tents, with  incisive  comments  of  his  own,  which 
Nathaniel  did  not  find  displeasing: 

"  She  don't  like  people,  that  lady.  I  call  that 
foolish.  It  spoils  your  comfort  not  to  like  peo- 

26 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

pie.  Mother,  she's  afraid  of  everybody,  but 
she  likes  'em  just  the  same." 

"I  am  sure  your  mother  has  a  kind  heart," 
Mr.  Roberts  said,  sleepily. 

"  Well,  you  bet  she  has,"  R.  J.  told  him ;  "  and 
so  have  I.  Now  your  lady  friend,  she  hasn't." 

And  Mr.  Roberts  grinned  silently.  During 
those  first  three  or  four  weeks  of  resting  and 
drinking  milk  and  trying  to  sleep,  Roberts  be- 
came very  intimate  with  all  matters  pertaining 
to  R.  J.  and  to  the  Holmes  menage:  he  knew 
R.  J.'s  ambition  to  run  an  elevator;  he  knew 
Mrs.  Holmes's  rule  that  hands  should  be  washed 
before  meals;  "it's  tough,"  R.  J.  confided, 
sadly,  "but  I  do  it,  to  please  her."  He  knew 
the  rent  of  the  flat,  and  the  landlord's  strange 
indifference  to  leaks  over  the  bay-window;  he 
knew  Mrs.  Holmes's  salary  to  a  dollar,  and  how 
difficult  it  was  to  stretch  it  over  a  whole  week. 
"That's  why  I  went  into  the  hotel  business," 
said  R.  J.,  gravely.  And  by-and-by  the  invalid 
knew  Mrs.  Holmes's  age,  too,  for  it  seemed 
natural  to  R.  J.  to  mention  that  when  she  was 
made  up  she  didn't  look  a  day  over  twenty. 
"  She's  thirty-three,  but  the  stage-manager  said 
she  made-up  twenty!  And  she  was  just  splen- 
did, too;  yes,  sir;  she  was  all  right.  There  were 
3  27 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

plenty  of  fellows  whose  mothers  were  in  the 
profession,  and  they  were  not  all  right." 

Nathaniel  was  so  startled  by  such  knowledge 
in  a  round-faced,  clear -eyed  lad  of  fourteen 
that  for  the  moment  he  had  no  reply ;  it  seems 
superfluous  to  congratulate  a  son  upon  his 
mother's  uprightness;  but  R.  J.  frankly  con- 
sidered it  a  subject  for  congratulation.  "Yes; 
there's  lots  of  boys,  and  their  mothers  have 
'friends.'  Mother,"  he  declared,  proudly,  "is 
splendid.  She  never  had  a  'friend'  in  her 
whole  life  but  me." 

And  Roberts  murmured  that  "  that  was  very 
nice."  He  was  incapable  of  administering  a 
snub  to  such  joyous  pride,  even  when  it  was  a 
little  insistent.  He  did,  however,  say,  quite 
positively,  that  he  would  not  go  to  the  theatre 
to  see  "mother"  in  her  new  part.  R.  J.  was 
promptly  told  to  thank  Mrs.  Holmes — who,  it 
appeared,  "would  get  a  pass  for  him" — and 
say  that  Mr.  Roberts  regretted  that  he  was  un- 
able to  avail  himself  of  her  kindness,  but  his 
eyes  could  not  bear  the  light.  R.  J.  sighed,  and 
said,  "  It's  too  bad  about  your  eyes."  And  no 
doubt  he  planned  a  call  to  console  the  invalid, 
for  in  one  of  their  daily  walks  he  managed  to 
bring  his  employer  to  a  triumphant  stand-still 

28 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

before  the  door  of  a  yellow  brick  apartment- 
house.  "This  is  my  house,"  he  said,  mag- 
nificently; "come  in,  and  you  can  see  the 
.cat." 

Roberts,  bored,  but  remembering  the  rejected 
theatre  tickets,  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
say  "no."  A  wheezing  elevator  tugged  them 
up  to  the  fifth  floor.  As  they  got  out,  R.  J.,  in 
his  excitement,  ran  joyously  ahead  to  bang  upon 
what  he  called  "my  door." 

"  Oh,  Dicky,"  some  one  within  said,  in  laugh- 
ing remonstrance;  "don't  break  the  door 
down!"  The  laugh  fluttered  into  a  shy  greet- 
ing when  she  saw  who  was  with  the  boy,  and 
Nathaniel  Roberts  had  a  distinct  moment  of 
surprise ;  he  had  not  expected  this  sort  of  thing. 
To  be  sure,  his  acquaintance  with  ladies  in  Mrs. 
Holmes's  profession  was  limited  to  newspaper 
pictures,  but  he  knew  enough  to  believe  that 
the  glare  of  the  footlights  does  not  conduce  to 
shyness.  R.  J.'s  mother  was  very  shy;  she 
led  the  way  into  her  little  parlor,  where  the 
air  was  sweet  with  hyacinths  blossoming  on  a 
sunny  window-sill,  and  when  she  sat  down  by 
a  small  tea-table  she  kept  a  tight  clasp  upon 
R.  J.'s  hand;  she  said,  gently,  "yes"  and  "no" 
when  he  made  some  perfunctory  remarks  about 

29 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

the  weather;  only  when  he  spoke  of  the  hya- 
cinths did  she  come  out  of  her  reserve. 

"They're  beautiful,"  he  declared;  and  she 
said,  eagerly,  "Yes;  isn't  the  blue  one  love- 
ly?" 

Upon  which  R.  J.  cried  out:  "Mother,  let's 
give  him  one!  Just  one;  not  more  than  that." 
Which  made  her  laugh;  but  she  kept  her  ner- 
vous clasp  upon  the  boy's  hand ;  she  was  even 
reluctant  to  let  him  leave  her  long  enough  to 
run  out  to  the  kitchen  for  the  once-forlorn  cat. 
"But  Mr.  Roberts  wants  to  see  her,"  R.  J.  re- 
monstrated in  a  shrill  whisper. 

As  they  went  back  to  the  hotel,  R.  J.  was 
very  confidential:  "You  see,  I  have  to  take 
care  of  her,  she's  frightened  so  easy.  Men 
frighten  her.  I  guess  she  don't  like  'ein.  I'd 
punch  any  man's  head  if  he  scared  her.  No; 
she  don't  like  men — except  me.  But  of  course 
I'm  different.  She  wouldn't  have  let  you  in  if 
I  hadn't  been  there.  I  told  her  I'd  bring  you 
up  some  day,  and  she  said  not  to ;  and  I  said  I'd 
bet  on  you  for  being  all  right,  and  you  wanted 
to  see  the  cat,  and  her,  and  you  were  just  dying 
to  come." 

To  have  his  friendliness  taken  for  granted  in 
this  way  almost  created  it;  but  it  was  friend- 

3° 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

liness  towards  boyhood,  for  Boy's  sake,  rather 
than  anything  personal  in  Dicky.  However, 
he  no  longer  smiled  when  R.  J.  assumed  that 
their  wishes  were  identical.  When  the  boy  said 
that  if  he  had  one  of  those  little  toy  steam- 
engines  he  could,  he  was  sure,  by  a  system  of 
pulleys,  rig  up  a  pump  which,  put  into  a  tum- 
bler, would  pump  water  right  out  on  to  the 
floor — "Oh,  well,  into  a  saucer,"  R.  J.  con- 
ceded, impatiently.  After  this  statement  it 
seemed  a  matter  of  course  to  Nathaniel  to  buy 
the  engine,  and  to  work  over  the  pulleys  until 
his  eyes  ached.  In  the  excitement  of  toil,  R.  J. 
cuddled  up  against  him  and  talked  about  his 
future:  while  it  was  big  money  to  have  a  hotel 
— and  when  he  was  little  he  had  thought  that 
when  he  was  a  man  he  would  have  one — "  I'd 
run  my  own  elevator;  that  would  be  the  real 
fun  of  it";  still,  machinery  was  mighty  good 
fun,  too.  There  was  a  school  where  they  taught 
you  about  machinery.  He  believed  he'd  go 
there.  Did  Mr.  Roberts  think  that  was  a  good 
idea? 

Mr.  Roberts  did  not  say  what  he  thought,  but 
all  the  same  he  did  a  good  deal  of  thinking.  In 
the  afternoon  he  said  he  was  going  out — by 
himself.  R.  J.,  much  astonished,  protested. 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

When  told  decidedly  that  Mr.  Roberts  did  not 
want  him,  he  looked  cross.  "  Well,  I  want  to 
go,"  he  whined;  and  Nathaniel  said,  sharply, 
"Do  as  you're  told! — no  grumbling!" 

R.  J.  continued  to  sulk,  but  Roberts  went  off 
with  a  glow  around  his  heart.  He  had  scolded 
him!  That  is  what  he  would  have  done  to 
Boy,  if  Boy  had  been  naughty.  Poor  R.  J.f 
very  cross,  kicking  his  heels  in  No.  302,  could 
not  understand  how  those  sharp  words  smooth- 
ed out  that  old  scar.  When  Roberts  knocked 
at  Mrs.  Holmes's  door,  she  opened  it  and  looked 
beyond  him  for  the  small  figure  she  expected 
to  see.  He  explained  that  he  had  left  R.  J.  at 
home,  "because,"  he  said,  "I  want  to  talk  to 
you  about  him." 

For  a  hesitating  moment  she  stood  on  her 
little  threshold  like  a  frightened  mother-bird, 
poising  with  out -stretched  wings  on  the  edge 
of  her  threatened  nest  and  looking  at  an  in- 
truder with  soft,  fierce  eyes.  Then  she  said,  in 
a  fluttering  voice,  "  I — I'm  sorry  Dicky  couldn't 
come.  Come  in." 

When  they  sat  down  in  the  parlor,  where  the 
sun  shone  through  the  white  roots  of  the  hya- 
cinths blossoming  in  green  glasses  on  the  win- 
dow-sill, Mr.  Roberts  went  at  the  matter  in  hand 

32 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

with  great  directness.  He  had  grown  much  in- 
terested in  her  son;  he  paused,  and  then  said, 
with  an  effort,  "  I  had  a  boy  of  my  own,  madam, 
who  would  have  been  just  his  age  if  he  had 
lived." 

Her  eyes  softened,  but  she  said  nothing.  He 
did  not  allude  to  Boy  again;  the  pain  of  doing 
so  even  once  deepened  the  lines  about  his  lips. 
He  said,  in  a  dry,  business-like  way,  that  he  did 
not  like  the  idea  of  Dick's  working  in  a  hotel — 
"it  wasn't  a  good  place  for  him." 

She  winced  at  that,  and  the  color  flooded  up 
to  her  temples;  her  lips  parted,  breathlessly, 
as  if  she  would  have  spoken;  but  she  said 
nothing. 

"I  don't  like  to  have  his  education  stop  at 
fourteen,"  Mr.  Roberts  went  on;  "he  ought  to 
go  to  a  preparatory  school,  and  then  to  college. 
I  have  come  to  ask  you,  Mrs.  Holmes,  if  you  will 
allow  me  to  make  this  possible  for  him.  Will 
you  let  me  take  him  with  me  when  I  go  West, 
and  give  him  those  opportunities?" 

The  instant  incredulous  resentment  of  her 
face  made  her  words,  "  What!  give  you  Dicky!" 
superfluous.  Roberts  hastened  to  explain : 

" Of  course  not;  you  would  come,  too.  I  will 
deem  it  a  privilege  to  defray  your  expenses." 

33 


R.  J.'S  MOTHER 

She  flashed  a  strange  look  at  him. 

"You  can  have  your  own  home  there,  just 
as  you  do  here ;  Dick  will  go  to  school,  and  I  can 
see  him  every  day." 

"I  think,"  she  said,  slowly,  "that  you  are 
kind.  Yes;  I  am  sure  you  are  just  kind." 

Nathaniel  made  an  impatient  gesture.  "I 
am  afraid  I  am  only  selfish;  R.  J.  gives  me 
something  to  think  about.  I  haven't  had  any- 
thing to  interest  me  for  thirteen  years." 

"I  am  sorry,"  she  said,  gently. 

""Well,  then,  we  will  consider  it  settled?"  he 
said,  rising. 

"I  mean,  I'm  sorry  to  disappoint  you." 

"You  mean  you  won't?" 

"I  can't." 

Nathaniel  was  really  perplexed;  her  timid, 
vivid  face  was  as  determined  as  an  obstinate 
child's.  "  But  you  must  see  that  it  would  be  a 
good  thing  for  Dick,"  he  remonstrated. 

She  smiled  a  little  breathlessly.  "Of  course; 
but  I  couldn't." 

"But  why?" 

She  only  repeated,  in  a  soft,  flurried  voice, 
that  he  was  very  kind,  she  was  sure  he  was 
just  kind.  But  it  was  impossible. 

Nathaniel  was  distinctly  annoyed;  to  find  a 
34 


ft.  J.'S   MOTHER 

thread  of  steel  hidden  in  this  shy,  silken  nature, 
was  an  irritating  surprise.  "Well,  think  it 
over,"  he  said,  coldly.  He  looked  pale  and 
tired  and  disappointed ;  she  glanced  at  him,  and 
then,  uncertainly,  at  her  little  tea-table;  but 
she  could  not  quite  venture.  As  for  Nathaniel, 
he  did  not  urge  any  more.  He  said  to  himself, 
as  he  stepped  into  the  little  coop  of  an  elevator, 
that  perhaps  he  had  been  hasty  and  tactless. 
After  all,  the  woman  did  not  know  him;  why 
should  she  give  up  her  profession,  and  change 
all  her  life,  just  because  he  said  it  would  be 
good  for  the  boy?  His  long-unused  imagina- 
tion stirred  a  little,  reminding  him  that  such  an 
abrupt  proposition  might  even  arouse  distrust  in 
a  woman  still  pretty  and  in  the  early  thirties. 
But  he  was  too  ruthlessly  determined  to  keep 
this  new  thing — a  personal  interest — to  have 
any  sympathy  with  her  gentle  foolishness.  He 
had  no  illusions  about  philanthropy ;  he  knew  he 
was  entirely  selfish,  but  he  contended  that  his 
selfishness  would  be  a  good  thing  for  R.  J.,  and 
therefore  he  was  justified  in  it.  Well,  he  would 
not  say  anything  more  about  it  at  present; 
he  would  just  call  on  her  two  or  three  times, 
and  show  her  what  a  steady  old  fellow  he  was, 
and  then  try  again.  .  .  .  He  carried  out  this 

35 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Machiavellian  plan,  which  in  a  month  establish- 
ed a  simple,  friendly  acquaintance.  There  was 
even  a  kind  of  intimacy.  He  told  her  about 
R.  J.'s  eye-drops,  and  she  no  longer  hesitated 
to  ask  him  to  have  a  cup  of  tea.  Sometimes 
she  forgot  her  shyness,  and  laughed  joyously 
over  some  of  R.  J.'s  remarks;  when  she  did 
this  the  mother  and  son,  in  the  pretty  chat- 
tering inconsequence  of  their  talk,  seemed  like 
a  boy  and  girl; — and  they  were  so  vital!  the 
clumsy,  freckled,  warm-hearted  R.  J.,  and  the 
mother  with  the  pretty  color  in  her  cheeks  and 
her  young  laugh!  Roberts,  chilled  by  the 
silence  of  his  thirteen  empty  years,  found  him- 
self leaning  towards  them  with  cold  hands 
stretched  out  to  their  warmth  and  glow;  to  be 
sure,  now  and  then  some  gust  of  shyness  in  the 
mother  would  suddenly  beat  the  light  out  of 
her  eyes,  and  a  cloud  would  fall  between  them. 
But  little  by  little  it  was  evident  that  she  was 
no  longer  afraid  of  him,  and  that  she  even  re- 
garded him  with  a  hesitating  friendliness.  She 
mended  his  coat  for  him  once,  and  once  she  of- 
f erd  to  write  that  weekly  letter  to  Miss  Blake ; 
"I  think  I  can  do  it  better  than  Dicky,"  she 
said,  with  a  droll  look.  Roberts  availed  him- 
self of  her  kindness,  to  the  relief,  undoubtedly, 

36 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

of  his  sister-in-law's  eyes.  "  I  suppose  he  got  a 
chambermaid  to  write  for  him,"  Miss  Blake  told 
the  Blake  cousin;  "it  seems  to  be  a  woman's 
hand.  I  do  hope  he  isn't  familiar  with  her. 
Men  are  so  coarse  in  such  matters." 

But  it  was  not  until  a  month  had  passed  that 
Nathaniel  was  "familiar"  enough  to  venture 
again  upon  his  plan  for  R.  J.'s  future.  When 
he  did,  her  negative  was  just  as  decided  as  ever. 

"But,"  he  urged,  "don't  you  see  how  good 
it  would  be  for  R.  J.  ?  Of  course,  I  will  be  glad 
to  be  responsible  for  his  education  here  in  New 
York.  But  if  I  could  have  him  under  my  own 
eye,  it  would  mean  far  more  to  me;  and  ulti- 
mately far  more  to  him." 

"Very  likely,"  she  agreed,  evasively. 

R.  J.  pulled  at  her  skirt.  "Mother,  let's!  It 
would  be  bully!"  She  smiled  at  him,  but 
shook  her  head. 

"You  see,"  Roberts  said,  speaking  with 
manifest  effort,  "I  like  to  do  it,  for — for  my 
son's  sake.  You  understand  ?" 

"Oh  yes,"  she  said,  eagerly,  "I  understand; 
perfectly." 

"Then  why — "  he  began. 

"  I  don't  want  to  give  up  my  profession,"  she 
broke  in, 

37 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Roberts  laughed.  "Oh,  now,  Mrs.  Holmes, 
I'm  sure  that  isn't  it;  I've  heard  you  say  that 
you  didn't  like  the  stage.  Come,"  he  ended, 
with  urgent  friendliness,  "say  'yes'!" 

"Truly,  truly,  I  can't,"  she  insisted  in  a 
flurried  voice. 

Nathaniel  went  away  very  thoughtful.  The 
next  day  he  came  back — without  R.  J.  It  was 
in  the  early  afternoon,  and  the  sunshine  poured 
into  the  little  parlor,  sifting  through  the  screen 
of  flowers  on  the  window-sill  and  resting  on  her 
brown  hair  as  she  sat  sewing;  she  was  putting 
breadths  of  light-blue  cotton-backed  satin  to- 
gether. "It's  for  a  troubadour's  mantle,"  she 
explained,  gayly.  But  when  he  began,  with 
quiet  determination,  to  demand  just  what  her 
reason  was  for  refusing  to  give  R.  J.  the  oppor- 
tunity which  was  offered  him,  she  put  her 
sewing  down  in  her  lap,  stroking  the  flimsy  satin 
with  a  trembling  needle,  and  now  and  then 
shaking  her  head.  She  heard  him  through  in 
silence.  When  he  had  finished,  she  looked  him 
full  in  the  face,  and  said: 

"I'll  tell  you  the  truth,  Mr.  Roberts.  My 
Dicky  is  more  to  me  than  anything  else  in  the 
world ;  but  I  am  more  to  him  than  anything  in 
the  world.  If  I  went  to  live  in  another  city, 

38 


R.  j.'S   MOTHER 

and  you  supported  us,  people  would  throw  it 
up  against  Dicky  some  day,  that  his  mother — 
wasn't  all  she  ought  to  be." 

"Good  Heavens,  madam!"  stammered  Na- 
thaniel— "no  one  could  pos — " 

But  she  interrupted  him,  her  voice  tense 
and  trembling:  "  Since  Dicky  was  born,  nobody 
can  say  a  word  against  me.  My  boy  has  got 
nothing  to  be  ashamed  of;  nothing!  And  I'm 
not  going  to  make  it  so  that  any  one  could  throw 
it  up  at  him  that  a  strange  man,  no  matter  how 
kind  and  good,  and — and  nice  he  was,  supported 
his  mother.  No!  I'll  never  forget  your  kind- 
ness; but  I  can't  have  you  do  one  single  thing 
for  Dicky — not  one  single  thing!" 

Nathaniel  was  absolutely  dumfounded;  then 
the  absurdity  of  it  made  him  angry.  "But — " 
he  began. 

"  Dicky  thinks  I  am  just  splendid;  and  /  am! 
And  nobody  shall  ever  make  him — wonder — " 

Roberts's  anger  suddenly  evaporated;  of 
course  it  was  perfectly  unreasonable,  but  it 
was  touching.  "There,  there!"  he  said,  kindly; 
"don't  cry,  my  dear — Mrs.  Holmes.  I  under- 
stand. You  are  making  a  mistake;  but  I  un- 
derstand." 

She  could  not  stop  crying  for  a  minute;  when 
39 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

she  did,  he  had  risen,  and  was  feeling  about  in 
his  half -blind  way  for  his  coat.  She  looked  up 
at  him,  and  then  came  and  took  his  hand,  put- 
ting it  quickly  to  her  lips.  "  You  are  a  kind  man. 
Oh,  don't  think  I  didn't  want  to  say '  yes ' ;  I  did. 
It  would  have  been  so  fine  for  Dicky.  But  for 
me  to  be  splendid,  the  way  he  thinks — oh,  that's 
more  to  Dicky  than  his  education!" 

"My  dear  woman,  you  would  be  just  as 
'splendid'—" 

"Oh  no,  no!" 

"Well,  you'll  let  me  look  after  his  schooling 
here,  anyhow?"  he  insisted,  good-naturedly. 

But  she  cried  out,  sharply:  "No!  Nothing. 
Not  a  cent.  Not  anything.  Some  day  Dicky 
might  think —  Oh,  Mr.  Roberts,  you  could  do 
it  for  any  other  woman ;  but  not  for  me,  not  for 
me—" 

It  was  impossible  to  be  angry  with  her  while 
she  looked  at  him  with  those  simple,  tragic, 
unreasoning  eyes.  Something  seemed  to  make 
his  own  eyes  dimmer  than  usual  for  a  minute; 
then  he  coughed,  and  shook  his  head.  "Oh, 
Mrs.  Holmes,  what  shall  I  do  with  you?"  he 
scolded;  and  went  down  into  the  spring  dusk, 
at  once  provoked  and  amused;  but  a  little 
tender,  too,  just  for  the  foolishness  of  it  all. 

40 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

Well,  of  course,  the  inevitable  happened:  he 
wanted  the  boy ;  if  he  could  not  get  him  on  his 
own  terms,  perhaps  he  could  get  him  on  hers? 
— for  she  must  have  terms!  "  Everybody  has  a 
price,"  said  Nathaniel  to  himself;  and  added, 
"But  I  like  her,  and  she's  a  good  little  soul." 
Without  liking  and  respect,  not  even  his  desire 
to  have  an  interest  in  life  could  have  moved 
him  to  consider  the  terms  which  Mrs.  Holmes 
might  be  willing  to  accept.  But  the  more  he 
reflected  upon  those  terms,  the  less  exorbitant 
they  seemed — except,  indeed,  when  he  re- 
membered Miss  Frances  Blake;  then,  for  the 
moment,  they  did  seem  high.  But  as  far  as  he 
personally  was  concerned,  they  were  not  ex- 
orbitant. .  .  .  She  was  so  gentle,  and  she  had 
sense,  and  she  wasn't  forever  criticising  people. 
And,  blessed  irresponsibility!  she  never  dis- 
played any  desire  to  reform  the  world!  When 
he  got  home  in  the  evening  from  the  office 
she  would  make  him  a  cup  of  tea,  and  they 
would  talk  about  R.  J.'s  future;  perhaps,  even, 
sometime,  he  might  speak  of  —  Boy?  She 
would  probably  know,  because  she  had  brought 
up  a  baby  herself,  whether  the  crib  had  been 
too  near  the  window.  Yes ;  he  might  talk  about 
Boy;  and  she  would  have  hyacinths  on  the 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

window-sills,  and  the  sun  would  shine  through 
their  long  white  roots  in  the  green  glasses.  Of 
course,  there  was  no  question  of  sentiment; — 
sentiment  was  the  last  thing  he  desired!  His 
plan  was  just  a  way  of  getting  over  her  absurd 
but  somehow  rather  pathetic  prudishness.  Yes, 
when  he  came  to  look  at  it,  the  terms  were  not 
only  not  exorbitant,  they  were  positively  ad- 
vantageous; to  come  home  from  the  office  and 
smell  the  hyacinths,  and  have  a  cup  of  tea  by 
the  fire,  and  hear  some  sensible  talk — and  she 
was  pretty  to  look  at.  Well ;  if  those  were  the 
terms  .  .  . 

On  his  way  up  to  the  flat  to  present  them,  he 
was  distinctly  pleased  with  himself — "  Settled  in 
a  very  reasonable  way,"  he  thought.  It  was 
so  reasonable  that  Mrs.  Holmes's  recoil  of  as- 
tonishment astonished  him.  He  had  put  his 
plan,  which  included,  of  course,  a  proper  ref- 
erence to  "high  regard  and  respect" — he  put 
it  before  her  with  a  sort  of  cheerful  assurance, 
an  almost  child -like  pride  at  his  own  cleverness 
in  having  thought  of  anything  so  practical.  Her 
dismay,  and  instant  negative,  wounded  him; 
but  he  was  really  more  surprised  than  offended. 

"Why!"  he  said,  in  amazement,  and  swal- 
lowed the  rest  of  the  sentence:  "what  do  you 

42 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

want?"  He  changed  this  naive  expression  of 
astonishment  to:  "Why,  but,  Mrs.  Holmes, 
think  of  R.  J.l" 

But  apparently  she  would  not  think  of  R.  J. ; 
she  would  not  even  discuss  the  matter,  until 
his  half -irritated  persistency  drew  from  her  the 
admission  that  she  had  no  personal  objection  to 
him.  "Of  course,"  he  said,  "if  you  object  to 
me,  I  would  not  think  of  urging  you." 

"Oh  no,  oh  no,"  she  broke  in,  hurriedly; 
"that  isn't  it." 

"Well,  then!  if  you  don't  object  to  me,  why 
isn't  it  a  very  sensible  arrangement? — for  you 
can't  deny  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  R.  J." 

"It's  sensible  enough,  if  you  only  look  at  it 
from  that  point  of  view,"  she  said,  "but — ' 

"That's  the  only  point  of  view  from  which 
you  can  look  at  it,"  he  declared — and  then 
stopped,  abruptly,  because  she  could  not  re- 
strain a  smile.  He  suddenly  remembered  that 
a  proposal  of  marriage  was  sometimes  looked 
at  from  another  point  of  view.  "  Of  course,"  he 
stammered,  "  I  know  you  couldn't  care  a  copper 
about  me,  personally.  This  is  just  a  common- 
sense  proposition,  based  upon  sincere  regard 
and  respect  on  my  part.  Don't  you  think  you 
can  put  up  with  me,  Mrs.  Holmes,  for  R.  J.'s 
43 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

sake?  Just  think  what  a  difference  it  would 
make  in  his  life!" 

She  put  her  hands  over  her  face,  and  he  saw 
that  she  quivered.  "It  is  a  temptation,"  she 
said,  in  a  low  voice — "when  you  put  it  that 
way." 

And  of  course  Nathaniel  "put  it  that  way" 
more  earnestly  than  ever.  But  she  looked  at 
him  with  sombre  eyes. 

"Listen;  it  wouldn't  be  fair.  It  wouldn't 
be  fair  to  you.  No;  I  won't  do  it." 

"  Fair  to  me?  Why,  bless  your  heart,  I  shall 
like  it  exceedingly!  I  mean  I  shall  like  it  on 
my  own  account.  Please  believe  that  I  am 
perfectly  selfish." 

"It  wouldn't  be  fair  to  you,"  she  repeated. 
And  when,  encouraged  by  feeling  that  he  had 
only  this  last  whim  to  overcome,  he  insisted 
that  he  was  really  the  beneficiary,  she  broke  in, 
harshly:  "I  tell  you,  you  don't  know  me." 

Roberts  gave  her  a  sudden,  silent  look;  then 
he  said,  quietly:  "Mrs.  Holmes,  I  know  that 
you  are  a  kind  woman,  and  a  good  mother; 
that's  all  I  need  or  desire  to  know.  We  won't 
make  any  pretences,  either  of  us.  I  am  much 
older  than  you,  and  you  are  wrapped  up  in 
R.  J. ;  but  we  are  good  friends.  Now,  consider- 

44 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

ing  this,  have  you  any  right  to  deprive  the  boy 
of  the  opportunity  I  offer  him?" 

"Oh,  I  ought  not  to  do  it,"  she  said.  She 
caught  her  lower  lip  between  her  teeth,  and 
looked  at  him — "no,  no,  I  ought  not  to  do  it!" 

"  But  you  will,"  Roberts  said,  gravely.  There 
was  a  long  pause.  Then  she  said,  with  an 
intensity  that  made  her  voice  harsh :  "  I  wouldn't 
think  of  it  if  it  wasn't  for  Dicky;  oh,  I  wouldn't; 
indeed  I  wouldn't!  You'll  believe  that,  Mr. 
Roberts?"  Nathaniel  could  not  help  a  rather 
rueful  smile,  for,  after  all,  he  was  a  man,  and 
to  be  regarded  only  as  a  check-book  made  him 
feel  a  little  blank  for  a  moment.  "It  isn't 
fair,"  she  said,  faintly;  and  held  out  her  hand. 

Nathaniel  took  it  in  his  kindly,  passionless 
clasp.  "It  is  perfectly  fair,"  he  said;  and  left 
her  without  another  word. 

The  next  time  they  met,  R.  J.'s  satisfaction 
brought  everything  back  to  the  common-sense 
basis  upon  which  Mr.  Roberts  had  made  his 
offer.  "Bully!"  said  R.  J.  "He's  all  right, 
mother;  it  will  be  nice  to  live  at  his  house." 
And  he  kept  assuring  Roberts  that  he  had  done 
well  for  himself.  "I  tell  you,  you're  lucky! 
You'll  like  living  with  mother.  She's  splendid. ' ' 

"Well,"  said  Roberts,  "you  can  begin  to 
45 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

pack  up;  we'll  go  home  next  week."  Then  he 
fell  into  somewhat  nervous  thought:  Frances! 
"When  did  you  write  your  last  letter  to  Miss 
Blake,  R.  J.?" 

"  Day  before  yesterday;  I  don't  have  to  do  it 
again  for  five  days,"  R.  J.  congratulated  himself. 

"  I'll  write  in  a  day  or  two  myself ;  I  think  my 
eyes  are  equal  to  it  now,"  Mr.  Roberts  said. 
But  his  eyes — or  something  else — put  the  letter 
off  so  that  the  hated  bulletin  fell  to  poor  R.  J. 
after  all.  "Just  say  I  am  getting  better;  I'll 
write  myself,  later,"  Mr.  Roberts  said.  R.  J. 
sighed,  and  got  through  his  task  as  quickly  as 
possible : 

"Mr.  Roberts  says  his  eyes  are  some  better.     He 
says  the  weather  is  warm  here.     He  hopes  you  are 
well.     He    is    well.     He    can    read    some.     He    and 
mother  are  to  be  married  on  Tuesday. 
"Yours  truly, 

"R.  J.  HOLMES." 

When  Miss  Frances  Blake  read  that  letter 
she  really  felt  faint.  It  took  her  several 
minutes  to  get  her  wits  together  sufficiently  to 
burst  into  tears ;  but  the  tears  relieved  her,  and 
between  her  sobs  she  said  to  the  Blake  cousin, 
who,  terrified,  was  offering  smelling-salts:  "It 

46 


I    HAVE    ALWAYS    SAID    HK    WOULD    DO    IT 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

is  just  what  I  said  would  happen.  I  am  per- 
fectly prepared  for  it." 

"  But  what  ?  Prepared  for  what  ?  Dear 
Frances,  what  is  it?  Do  control  yourself! — 
you  alarm  me." 

"You  may  well  be  alarmed,"  said  Miss  Blake. 
"My  sainted  Nettie!  But  I  am  not  surprised. 
You  will  bear  me  witness  that  I  have  always 
said  he  would  do  it." 

An  illuminating  flash  of  memory  informed 
Miss  Harriet.  "You  don't  mean,"  she  gasped, 
"that  Nat  is  going  to  be — married?'1 

"I  do.  Nathaniel  Roberts  is  faithless  to  my 
sister's  memory.  And  not  content  with  that, 
he  insults  that  memory  by  choosing  a  chamber- 
maid as  his  second  wife." 

The  Blake  cousin  gasped.  "Nathaniel?  A 
chambermaid?  Impossible!"  The  ensuing  ex- 
planation assisted  her  to  get  her  breath.  "I 
don't  believe  it  is  a  chambermaid ;  I  know  Nat : 
and  I  won't  believe  it."  Miss  Harriet's  anger, 
the  slow  anger  of  a  gentle  person,  was  mounting 
in  her  eyes.  "  I  think  you  are  very  hard  on  him. 
I  have  always  thought  so.  Why  shouldn't 
he  marry  again  ?  He  has  waited  fourteen  years. 
For  my  part,  I  think  it  would  have  been  a 
thousand  times  better  if  he  had  married  right 

47 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

off — in  a  year  or  two.  Living  alone  has  made 
him  dull  and,  I'm  afraid,  selfish  —  poor  Na- 
thaniel! I've  always  felt  it,  and  now  I've  said 
it." 

"You  have,"  said  Miss  Blake — "you  have, 
indeed!  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  more.  You 
lay  yourself  open  to  a  peculiar  suspicion,  Har- 
riet. I  will  not  name  that  suspicion.  It  would 
be  vulgar  to  name  it." 

Miss  Harriet  turned  very  red.  "  It  is  vulgar 
to  think  it,  but  I  wouldn't  stoop  to  deny  it. 
All  I  have  to  say  is,  if  that  poor  man  has  found 
anybody — I  don't  care  if  she  is  a  chamber- 
maid!— who  can  make  him  happy,  I  'am  glad 
of  it." 

As  she  went  home  Miss  Harriet  cried  under 
her  veil  with  anger;  as  for  Frances  Blake,  it 
was  many  years  since  she  had  been  so  shaken; 
she  was  sick  with  rage.  But  not  too  sick  to 
pack  a  hand-bag  and  consult  a  time-table. 
In  that  long  journey  east  the  wrinkle  between 
her  black  eyebrows  cut  deeper  than  ever  and 
her  lips  were  pale  with  purpose.  When  she 
reached  Nathaniel's  hotel  and  asked  if  he  were 
in  his  room,  she  could  hardly  control  her  voice. 
"No;  you  needn't  announce  me,"  she  said; 
"I  will  go  up.  I  am  his  sister.  In-law." 
48 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

As  she  turned  away  from  the  counter  a  clerk, 
in  pantomime,  raised  an  umbrella  over  his  head, 
and  pretended  that  his  teeth  were  chattering; 
but  another  clerk,  blotting  Miss  Blake's  name 
in  the  register,  did  not  laugh.  "Well,  I  pity 
him,"  he  said,  "if  he's  got  her,  on  top  of  this 
business  of  poor  little  Holmes." 

In  the  elevator  Miss  Blake  went  over  in  her 
mind  her  opening  remarks  to  her  brother-in- 
law;  she  did  not  notice  the  elevator-man,  nor 
the  boy  who  was  carrying  her  bag,  nor  did  she 
listen  to  their  chatter:  "Well,  you  young  fel- 
lers will  learn  not  to  monkey  with  that  there 
freight-machine.  If  he'd  kep'  his  hands  off — " 

"Aw,  look-a-here,  if  it  had  been  fastened  a' 
right—" 

"It  was  fastened  right  enough;  he  had  no 
call  to  fool  with  it.  Well,  I'm  sorry  for  him; 
and  for  his  mother;  and  for  No.  302,  too.  They 
say  he's  considerable  shook  up  over  it  ? —  Third 
floor!  Fourth  door  to  the  right,  madam.  Here, 
you!  Take  the  lady's  bag." 

At  No.  302  Miss  Blake's  hand  trembled  as  she 
knocked ;  but  the  muffled  answer  within  steadied 
her,  and  made  the  fires  of  battle  glow  in  her 
eyes.  Nathaniel  was  sitting  at  a  table,  writing. 
For  an  instant  he  looked  up  at  his  visitor  in 
49 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

bewilderment;  then,  recognizing  her,  he  pushed 
his  chair  back  and  rose.  "What!  You?  Why, 
Frances!  Where  did  you  come  from ?  Is  any- 
thing the  matter — " 

"Yes,"  said  Frances  Blake,  "something  is  the 
matter" — she  put  her  umbrella  on  the  table 
across  his  papers  and  loose  checks;  then,  very 
slowly,  she  began  to  draw  off  her  gloves — "  some- 
thing is  indeed  the  matter.  This  awful,  this 
terrible  thing  is  the  matter." 

"Oh,"  said  Nathaniel,  "yes — yes.  Most  ter- 
rible!" He  sighed,  and  passed  his  hand  over  his 
eyes.  "Sit  down,  Frances.  Yes;  most  dread- 
ful." He  sat  down  himself,  wearily.  "  But  how 
did  you  know  ?  Oh,  I  suppose  you  saw  it  in  the 
papers.  You  are  very  kind,  I  am  sure." 

"  I  mean  to  be  kind,  Nathaniel.  That  is  why 
I  have  come — to  take  you  home." 

"  I  meant  to  go  next  week,"  he  said,  with  a 
surprised  look,  "but  this  will  delay  me." 

"No,"  said  Miss  Blake,  "it  need  not  delay 
you.  I,  personally,  will  settle  with  these — 
these  persons." 

"Settle?"  said  Nathaniel  Roberts,  vaguely; 
"I  don't  understand.  What  are  you  talking 
about? — what  persons?" 

"This  young  man  and  that  adventuress,  his 

5° 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

mother,"  said  Miss  Blake,  her  voice,  which 
had  been  in  tense  control,  beginning  to  tremble 
— "these  terrible  people  who  have  trapped  you: 
an  intriguing  chambermaid  and  a  bell-boy! 
And  you  my  sister  Nettie's  husband!" 

"I'd  stop,  if  I  were  you,"  said  Roberts, 
slowly;  "I  see,  now,  what  you  are  driving  at. 
I  thought — for  a  minute  I  really  made  the  mis- 
take of  thinking  that  you  meant  to  be  kind 
about  the  boy.  I  ought  to  have  known  better. 
But  you  need  have  no  further  anxiety,  Frances. 
My  little  friend,  the  boy,  is  dead." 

Miss  Blake,  her  mouth  open,  stared  at  him. 

"  There  was  an  accident.  He  took  it  into  his 
head  to  start  the  freight-elevator.  He  was 
killed — poor  little  R.  J. !  The  only  son  of  his 
mother,  and  she— 

"A.  widow?  That  explains  it;  a  widow!  Of 
course  the  young  man's  death  is  sad.  I  am 
sincerely  sorry  for  his  mother — even  if  she  is  a 
widow.  And  I  don't  mean  to  speak  against 
the  youth,  now  he's  dead,  but — ' 

"You  had  better  not,"  said  Nathaniel  Rob- 
erts. "  He  shall  not  be  spoken  of  in  my  pres- 
ence except  with  respect.  We  will  bring  this 
interview  to  a  close,  if  you  please.  I  will,  how- 
ever, say  that  the  lady  who  did  me  the  honor 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

to  say  she  would  marry  me,  did  so  merely  be- 
cause it  was  the  conventional  way  of  letting 
me  join  my  forces  to  hers  in  bringing  up  and 
educating  her  son,  in  whom  I  was  deeply  inter- 
ested. It  was  a  sacrifice  to  her  to  do  this,  and 
it  commanded  my  profoundest  gratitude  and 
respect.  This  terrible  accident  makes  such  a 
sacrifice  on  her  part  unnecessary.  She  told  me 
so,  after  the  funeral.  I  was,  of  course,  obliged 
to  submit  to  her  decision.  You  see,  you  need 
not  have  been  afraid  that  I  should  get  a  little 
happiness  out  of  life,  Frances;  you  might  have 
spared  yourself  the  journey.  I  will  ring  for  a 
porter  to  take  your  bag  down-stairs." 

Nathaniel  turned  to  the  table,  and  gathered 
up  his  papers.  There  were  no  adieux;  but  if 
the  poor  old  Blake  cousin  could  have  seen  Miss 
Frances's  cringing  face  as  she  left  No.  302,  she 
would  have  been  avenged!  When  Mr.  Roberts 
heard  the  door  close,  he  said  something  under 
his  breath.  And  then  Miss  Blake  was  forgotten ; 
he  had  other  things  to  think  of.  ... 

It  was  not  that  he  grieved,  as  the  bewildered, 
broken  woman  in  the  yellow  brick  apartment- 
house  was  grieving.  He  had  not  loved  R.  J. 
Paternal  emotion  had  been  buried  thirteen  years 
before,  in  Boy's  grave,  and  not  even  honest  R. 

53 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

J.  had  revived  it;  but  he  had  liked  the  lad 
thoroughly,  and  liking  had  made  life  interesting; 
and  now  he  must  go  back  to  a  life  without  an 
interest.  Perhaps,  in  a  way,  he  could  have 
borne  grief  better  than  the  bitterness  of  this 
half-angry  disappointment.  It  had  been  his 
task  to  tell  the  poor  mother  the  dreadful  news 
of  R.  J.'s  swift  and  painless  death;  she  had 
received  it  with  a  stoicism  that  woke  some 
memory  in  his  mind  of  those  days  when  he,  too, 
"did  not  shed  a  tear."  Roberts  would  have 
taken  charge  of  everything,  and  spared  her  the 
agonizing  details  of  Death,  but  she  was  jealous 
to  keep  for  herself  every  intimate  care  of  the 
little  body  that  had  been  so  warm  and  eager  and 
happy.  Together  they  buried  the  child,  and 
Nathaniel  lived  over  that  day  when  he  had 
looked  down  into  a  grave  that  held  all  the 
world,  and  all  he  knew  of  heaven — such  a  very 
little  grave  to  hold  so  much!  .  .  .  When  it  was 
over,  and  they  sat  together  in  the  parlor  of  the 
flat  where  the  air  was  heavy  with  the  white 
flowers  that  he  had  brought  that  morning,  she 
said,  suddenly: 

"I  had  forgotten.  Of  course,  now  I  won't 
go  back  with  you.  I  ought  to  have  said  so. 
I  forgot." 

53 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

And  so  does  death  clear  away  what  is  unreal 
and  leave  only  truth  that  Roberts  answered  by 
an  assenting  silence.  At  that  moment  con- 
ventional repetition  of  his  offer  would  have 
been  impertinence ;  all  that  had  given  it  dignity 
and  significance  had  been  taken  from  it;  to 
have  repeated  it  would  only  have  emphasized 
its  emptiness.  So  he  nodded  silently.  It  was 
not  until  he  got  up  to  go  away  that  he  suddenly 
realized  that  he  had  made  no  protest — and 
somehow  a  protest  seemed  due  to  the  mere 
pitifulness  of  the  situation. 

"I  beg,"  he  said,  gently,  "that  you  will  not 
let — this,  make  any  difference.  Please  marry 
me,  dear  Mrs.  Holmes." 

She  looked  at  him  in  faint  surprise.  "  Why, 
of  course  not,"  she  said,  wearily.  And  the 
finality  of  her  voice  silenced  him.  .  .  .  This  scene 
had  been  in  his  mind  when  his  sister-in-law 
descended  upon  him.  "Now,  I  have  nothing 
to  interest  me,"  he  was  saying  to  himself;  and 
then  the  door  opened,  and  Miss  Frances  pro- 
vided him  with  at  least  a  temporary  interest. 
When  she  had  gone,  he  wished  for  a  moment 
that  Mrs.  Holmes  had  been  willing  to  carry  out 
that  now  useless  plan,  just  to  punish  Frances! 

His  gust  of  futile  anger  drove  him  up  to  the 
54 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

flat,  though  he  had  really  no  reason  for  going; 
there  was  nothing  he  could  do  for  Mrs.  Holmes. 
He  found  her  in  the  midst  of  that  most  dear, 
most  heart-breaking  task,  of  looking  over  the 
dead  child's  possessions.  Ah,  if,  when  we  leave 
the  world,  we  could  but  take  our  possessions 
with  us,  how  much  precious  pain  we  would 
spare  those  whom  we  leave  behind!  It  is  not 
the  things  which  have  intrinsic  value  which 
stab  the  survivor;  they  may  yet  fulfil  their 
owner's  wish  or  interest  in  some  way  or  other, 
they  may  still  comfort,  or  cheer,  or  serve — it  is 
the  little,  pathetic,  useless  things,  the  worn 
and  shabby  things,  the  things  which  had  some 
secret  meaning  of  association — what  must  be 
done  to  these  things  ?  It  is  they  that  crush  the 
heart!  There  was  a  small  round  stone  that  R. 
J.  carried — Heaven  knows  why! — in  his  little 
pocket-book;  a  rusty  penknife;  a  ladder  con- 
structed from  burned  matches.  .  .  .  What  could 
R.  J.'s  mother  do  with  these  worthless  things? 
When  Roberts  came  and  sat  beside  her,  in 
speechless  sympathy,  she  stopped  her  task  of 
sorting  out  and  trying  to  throw  away,  to  show 
him  all  the  boy's  pictures  from  the  time  he  was 
three  weeks  old  up  to  the  last  one,  taken  some 
six  months  before,  With  unsteady  fingers  she 

55 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

handed  him  a  twist  of  paper  which  held  a  flaxen 
curl ;  and  she  brought  out  a  little  heap  of  pres- 
ents that  R.  J.  had  made  her:  a  plush  picture- 
frame,  a  ribbon,  a  painted  celluloid  heart  pin- 
cushion— a  dozen  worthless,  precious  things. 
When  she  wrapped  them  all  up  again  in  a  big, 
white  silk  handkerchief,  she  said,  in  a  hard 
voice : 

"I  keep  thinking:  I  ought  to  have  told  him 
never  to  touch  the  elevator.  It  wouldn't  have 
happened  if  I  had  told  him;  he  was  so  obe- 
dient, you  know." 

And  Roberts  cried  out,  as  if  she  had  touched 
the  quick:  "You  must  not  have  such  thoughts! 
7  know  them;  they  kill!  You  must  not  think 
things  like  that." 

She  shook  her  head  hopelessly.  "I  keep 
thinking  of  it  all  the  time:  why — why  didn't 
I  tell  him?" 

"Oh,  you  poor  girl!"  Roberts  said;  "I  know. 
I  understand." 

When  he  got  up  to  go  he  asked  her  to  write 
to  him  sometimes;  she  promised,  but  a  little 
vaguely.  She  went  out  into  the  hall  with  him, 
and  they  waited  silently  while  the  elevator 
climbed  slowly  up  and  up  to  her  floor.  When 
it  stopped,  with  a  wheezy  rattle,  at  the  top 
56 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

landing,  he  pushed  back  the  sliding-door,  and 
put  out  his  hand;  she  took  it;  they  neither  of 
them  spoke.  Then  Roberts  stepped  into  the 
little  coop,  and  began  the  slow  descent.  "  Poor 
girl,"  he  said — "poor  girl!" 

He  had  forgotten  his  own  disappointment. 

When  Nathaniel  Roberts  got  home  he  dis- 
covered, with  astonishment — as  most  people 
do  at  one  time  or  another  in  their  lives — that 
he  had  not  been  as  necessary  as  he  had  sup- 
posed: the  office  had  got  along  very  well  in  his 
absence;  Frances's  affairs  had  got  along  very 
well ;  nobody's  interests  had  suffered  because  he 
had  had  for  a  day  an  interest  of  his  own.  There 
was  no  reason,  now  that  his  eyes  were  all  right, 
why  he  should  not  settle  down  into  the  old  rut, 
and  be  as  dull  and  comfortable  as  ever — settle 
down  even  to  the  fortnightly  dinner  with  Miss 
Blake ;  for  it  must  be  admitted  that  Miss  Blake 
behaved  very  well:  she  wrote  her  brother-in- 
law  to  the  effect  that  she  regretted  that  any 
perhaps  hasty  words  of  hers  (the  fatigue  of  the 
journey  must  be  her  excuse  for  hastiness)  had 
displeased  him.  She  said  she  felt  it  a  duty  to 
beg  his  pardon,  and  that,  as  he  knew,  she  al- 
ways tried  to  do  her  duty.  So  she  hoped  he 

57 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

would  allow  bygones  to  be  bygones  ("for  my 
part,  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  forgive  and  for- 
get," wrote  Miss  Blake),  and  come  to  dinner 
on  Sunday  next  at  a  quarter  to  seven.  She 
would  be  glad,  she  added,  if  Nathaniel  would 
make  a  point  of  being  punctual. 

As  part  of  the  process  of  settling  down  into 
the  rut  again,  Nathaniel  made  the  point,  and 
arrived  at  6.44.  But  not  even  dinners  with 
Frances,  or  the  treadmill  at  the  office,  brought 
back  the  old  numbness  and  comfort;  he  was 
restless,  and  he  wondered  why.  He  wrote 
several  times  to  Mrs.  Holmes,  and  heard  from 
her  once.  He  thought  of  her  a  good  deal ;  or, 
rather,  he  thought  of  how  she  was  suffering — 
poor  girl!  He  winced  at  that  self-reproach 
about  the  freight  -  elevator.  "She  ought  not 
to  allow  herself  to  think  of  it,"  he  said;  "it  is 
dangerous — dangerous.  I  wish  I  had  asked 
about  the  crib;  I'll  never  have  the  chance  to 
now,  I  suppose." 

When  the  226.  of  November  approached  he 
remembered,  with  a  thrill  of  interest,  that  the 
birthday  this  time  meant  two  boys;  then  it 
occurred  to  him  that  his  purchase  might  take 
the  form  of  something  for  R.  J.'s  mother,  which 
should  reach  her  on  the  226..  But  what  should 

58 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

it  be  ?  He  thought  of  her  little  heap  of  precious 
rubbish,  and  his  eyes  stung.  He  wondered 
what  she  would  like?  On  the  2oth  he  said  to 
himself  that  he  really  must  make  up  his  mind; 
but  he  could  not  think  of  anything  that  would 
please  her.  In  the  afternoon,  in  desperation, 
he  darted  into  a  jewelry-shop,  and  said :  "  Some- 
thing for  a  lady,  please.  Oh — anything;  what 
do  they  like?"  The  salesman,  it  appeared, 
knew  just  what  they  liked ;  at  any  rate,  he  put 
a  little  velvet  case  into  his  customer's  hand,  and 
Roberts  departed  with  a  sense  of  relief.  That 
night  he  sat  smoking,  going  over  the  last  year, 
and  thinking  how  different  it  would  all  have 
been  if  R.  J.  had  lived.  Well,  he  hoped  she 
would  like  that  thing  in  the  velvet  box.  It 
occurred  to  him  to  look  at  it.  "I  think  one 
of  her  blue  hyacinths  is  prettier,"  he  said  to  him- 
self, and  put  the  open  case  down  on  his  table. 
It  was  there  the  next  morning  when  Miss  Blake 
came  in  early  to  have  a  word  with  him  on  some ' 
business  matter  before  he  went  to  his  office. 
The  little  diamond,  winking  in  its  simple  setting, 
was  a  spark  to  powder. 

"Why,  Nathaniel!  You  buying  jewelry? 
For  whom,  may  I  ask,  if  it  is  not  imperti- 
nent?" 

5  59 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Roberts 's  silence  conveyed  his  views  upon 
impertinence;  then  he  said:  "For  a  friend." 

Miss  Blake  put  the  velvet  case  down  and 
looked  at  him,  her  heavy  black  brows  lowering 
with  suspicion.  "Nathaniel,  I  am  the  last 
person  to  be  curious;  but — for  your  own  sake, 
it  isn't,  oh — Nathaniel,  it  isn't  for  that  per- 
son?" 

"If  you  mean  for  my  friend,  Mrs.  Holmes, 
it  is,"  he  said. 

They  stood  looking  at  each  other  in  silence, 
each  afraid  to  drop  the  curb  of  self  -  control. 
Then  Frances  Blake  said:  "Nathaniel,  I  should 
not  be  doing  my  duty  if  I  did  not  say  that  this 
is  very  unwise.  You  might  arouse  hopes.  Yes ; 
when  Providence  removed  that  poor  young  man 
to  (I  hope)  heaven,  it  kept  you  from  faithless- 
ness to  our  dear  Nettie,  and  saved  you  from  a 
marriage  which  would  have  been,  I  am  sure, 
unhappy.  When  your  interest  in  her  son 
ceased  she  could  have  no  claim  upon  you.  But 
if  you  now  encourage  her  by  a  gift — " 

"You  encourage  me,"  said  Nathaniel  Rob- 
erts, "to  mind  my  own  business." 

Miss  Frances  Blake  took  her  departure. 
When  your  brother-in-law  talks  about  mind- 
ing his  own  busness,  there  is  nothing  else  to 

60 


"'l    MUST    HAVE    SOMETHING    TO    TAKE    CARE    OF,'    HE    SAID' 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

do.  ...    Nathaniel  was  never  asked  to  dinner 
again. 

That  very  night  he  took  the  Eastern  express. 
He  was  going  to  mind  his  own  business. 

"I  want  you  for  my  own  sake,"  he  said, 
brokenly,  and  put  her  hand  to  his  lips. 

"No,"  she  said,  "not  me.  You  don't  want 
me,  Mr.  Roberts." 

"You,  and  only  you,"  he  told  her,  almost 
angrily;  "  don't — don't  say  things  like  that,"  he 
entreated  her. 

She  stroked  his  shoulder  with  her  free 
hand,  and  smiled ;  but  there  were  tears  in  her 
eyes.  "  Mr.  Roberts,  don't  you  see  ?  I'm 
not  your  kind.  I'm  just  —  I'm  just  R.  J.'s 
mother." 

"You  are  the  kind  I  want,"  he  said;  "  I  didn't 
know  it  when  I  asked  you.  I  thought  I  wanted 
something  else.  But  it  was  you,  all  the  time. 
I  want  something  to  take  care  of.  Oh,  you 
don't  know  how  lonely  I  am!  I  must  have 
something  to  take  care  of.  Say  'yes,'  R.  J.'s 
mother." 

"Mr.  Roberts,"  she  began,  and  stopped  and 
covered  her  eyes  for  a  moment;  he  saw  that 
she  held  her  lip  hard  between  her  teeth — "  Mr? 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Roberts,  then  I  must  tell  you:  I  can't.  ...  I 
was  not  married  to  Dicky's  father." 

"Oh,  my  little  girl,"  he  said,  "my  poor  little 
dear  girl!"  Then  he  put  his  arms  around  her 
and  kissed  her. 

"  I  knew  that  long  ago,"  he  said. 


THE   MORMON 


THE   MORMON 

"AND  the  worst  of  it  is,  they  are  all  such 
/v  nice  people!" 

"Why,  that's  the  best  of  it,  it  seems  to  me. 
Of  course,  they  all  mean  well." 

"In  a  certain  way  they  all  do  well,  too," 
Mrs.  Strong  said,  sighing;  "really,  it  is  very 
perplexing.  Adele  is  the  truest  friend  to  him! 
Why,  where  would  he  have  been  now  without 
Adele?" 

"In  the  barn-yard,  probably,"  Henry  Austin 
told  her,  putting  his  teacup  down  on  the  mantel- 
piece behind  him,  "and  making,  no  doubt,  an 
excellent  farmer." 

"Farmer?  Yes!  Plodding  about  in  rusty 
boots  (I  declare,  I  smell  the  barn-yard  now 
whenever  he  comes  in  in  his  pumps!) — plodding 
about  in  his  potato-fields  all  day,  and  falling 
asleep  over  his  Shakespeare  at  eight  o'clock  in 
the  evening!  Exciting  life." 

65 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"  Not  exciting,"  her  old  friend  admitted,  smil- 
ing, "but  contented." 

"Well,  but,  my  dear  Henry! — he's  contented 
now;  or,  at  any  rate,  he  ought  to  be.  He's  a 
successful  actor;  indeed,  I  think  he  is  a  great 
actor — and  you  know  I  don't  say  that  lightly. 
He  has  an  angel  of  a  wife ;  Dora  is  the  best  girl 
I  know.  And  he  has  a  mother-in-law  who  is 
the  most  charming  woman  in  the  world !  Now, 
isn't  Adele  a  charmer?" 

"  Oh,  bless  my  soul,  yes — at  least,  I  suppose 
she  is.  She  always  was.  You  know,  I  haven't 
seen  her  for  a  dozen  years.  But  she  certainly 
was  a  charmer  then.  I  bear  the  scars  still," 
he  ended,  drolly. 

"You  don't  look  like  a  blighted  being,"  she 
told  him.  "Well,  she's  more  charming  now 
than  when  she  broke  your  heart,  if  such  a  thing 
is  possible.  Dora's  marriage  to  Augustine  was 
so  eminently  fitting  and  Augustine's  success 
has  been  wine  to  her.  Sometimes  I  think  she 
adores  it  as  much  as  she  does  him." 

"She  had  just  discovered  him  when  I  went 
away,"  Henry  Austin  said,  thoughtfully.  He 
was  standing  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  looking 
down  at  the  plump,  anxious  little  old  lady  on 
the  yellow  damask  sofa  at  the  other  side  of  the 

66 


THE   MORMON 

hearth.  "I  remember,"  he  went  on,  frowning 
reflectively,  "that  she  spoke  to  me  about  him. 
I  told  her  she  had  a  flair  for  genius;  she  was 
always  discovering  people  who  could  do  things. 
She  once  thought  she  had  discovered  me;  she 
cherished  temporarily  the  belief  that  I  could 
write.  When  I  didn't  she  had  to  admit  that 
I  was  not  terra  incognita,  and  of  course  I 
ceased  to  be  interesting,"  he  ended,  candidly. 

"Yes,  but  she  really  has  a  flair  for  genius," 
Mrs.  Strong  said;  "she  has  found  lots  of  them. 
You  remember  that  it  was  she  who  discover- 
ed Elise  Da  vis's  voice?  And  she  scraped  up 
money  from  all  of  us  to  send  that  Ernst  man 
to  Paris — and  did  you  see  what  the  last  Revue 
des  Beaux- Arts  said  about  him?  And  she  pick- 
ed up  Rose  Harris,  a  little  seamstress  at  one 
dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  a  day,  and  started 
her  in  business ;  and  let  me  tell  you,  sir,  if  you 
had  a  wife  (as  you  ought  to  have),  and  had  to 
pay  Harris's  bills,  you  would  understand  her 
genius!  I  can't  afford  a  Harris  dress  oftener 
than  once  in  two  years.  Then  came  Augustine. 
I  suppose  you  know  how  she  discovered  him?" 

Henry  Austin  shook  his  head,  whimsically. 
"Hazel  rod?" 

"  My  dear,  she  went  to  spend  the  summer  on 
67 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

a  farm,  for  economy.  Took  Dora;  Dora  was 
fifteen  then.  (Mr.  Wharton  had  just  died,  and 
we  were  all  thanking  Heaven  for  her  release.) 
And  there  was  this  genius,  twenty-eight  years 
old;  self-educated;  refined,  too,  in  a  way, 
though  his  boots  were  barn-yardy  —  and  as 
beautiful  as  a  god.  And  good.  Yes,  he  cer- 
tainly is  a  good  man ;  I  am  worried  enough  over 
the  affair,  but  I  know  Augustine  Ware  is  a  good 
man.  That's  what  makes  it  so  puzzling.  He  is 
good,  and  Adele  is  good,  and  Dora  is  an  angel!" 

"My  dear  Jane!  Do  you  want  them  to  be 
bad?" 

"  Now,  Henry,  don't  be  frivolous.  But  I  tell 
you  one  thing:  there's  a  good,  honest,  human 
badness  that  isn't  nearly  so  bad  as  a  certain 
kind  of  goodness.  A  goodness  that  is  just  a 
mental  philandering — that  nobody  recognizes." 

"Not  even  the  philanderers,"  Austin  said, 
much  amused.  "Really,  Jane,  I  don't  think 
you  need  be  cast  down,  'long  as  they're  'appy 
an'  virtuous." 

"  I  am  cast  down ;  because — Dora — " 

"  Is  the  child  jealous  ?" 

"No — oh  no.  She  isn't  jealous.  She's  too 
innocent  to  be  jealous — or  too  stupid;  I  don't 
know  which." 

68 


THE   MORMON 

"  Same  thing,"  Henry  Austin  said,  laconically. 

"Now  stop!  I  won't  listen  to  such  horrid, 
cynical  talk.  I'm  ashamed  of  you.  But,  seri- 
ously, Henry,  it's  Mormonism,  you  know." 

"Jane — isn't  that  'language'?" 

The  old  lady  on  the  yellow  sofa  chuckled  and 
sighed.  "The  situation  calls  for  'language," 
she  said,  smoothing  the  lap  of  her  purple  satin 
gown  with  a  plump,  jewelled  little  hand;  "and 
I  only  say  it  to  you,  Henry.  You've  been  in 
love  with  Adele,  and  you've  dandled  Dora  on 
your  knee,  and  you'll  take  my  word  about 
Augustine — he's  a  good  fellow.  Yes,  Mormon- 
ism.  Adele  is  the  wife  of  his  mind,  and  Dora 
is  the  wife  of  his  bosom.  And  it  isn't — pretty." 

"It  has  an  ambiguous  sound,"  he  agreed, 
meditatively. 

"And  yet,  you  know,  it's  all  so  natural,"  she 
complained.  "Adele  made  him.  She  created 
him.  She  introduced  him  to  a  finger-bowl  and 
a  dress-coat — yes,  positively,  to  a  dress-coat. 
She  woke  his  mind;  she  unearthed  his  genius; 
she  pulled  innumerable  wires  (Adele  always  was 
a  wire-puller,  in  her  sweet  way) — she  pulled 
managerial  wires  and  got  him  a  hearing — a 
thing  he  never  could  have  done  himself.  And 
once  heard,  his  success  was  assured.  In  two 

69 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

years,  Henry,  he  could  make  his  own  terms, 
positively.  Oh  yes,  a  genius,  of  course.  Well, 
practically,  he  is  hers;  he  ought  to  be." 

"Then  why  on  earth  didn't  he  marry  herf" 
inquired  Henry  Austin. 

"My  dear,  she  was  ten  years  older  than  he, 
to  begin  with.  And,  anyhow,  Dora,  at  twenty, 
pretty  and  good — not  too  keen,  but  so  good; 
why,  it  was  just  the  obvious  thing  to  marry 
Dora!  Of  course,  he  thought  he  was  in  love 
with  her;  but  in  a  way,  you  see,  marrying  Dora 
was  a  sort  of  tribute  to  Adele — a  return  for  all 
she  had  done  for  him.  Adele  was  bitterly  poor, 
and  yet,  of  course,  he  couldn't  simply  support 
her  out  of  gratitude.  Yes ;  to  marry  her  daugh- 
ter was  the  natural  thing  to  do — and  to  sup- 
port his  mother-in-law  was  natural,  too.  Adele 
has  every  comfort.  Why,  the  man  has  his 
yacht.  Adele  was  off  on  it  all  last  summer. 
She's  very  fond  of  the  water." 

"  Did  Adele  like  the  niatch  ?" 

Mrs.  Strong  sighed  and  narrowed  her  eyes 
thoughtfully.  "Why,  really — I  don't  know. 
She  said  she  did.  She  said  it  was  perfectly 
beautiful.  And  Adele  is  too  honest  to  lie.  If 
she  hadn't  been  pleased,  she  could  have  held 
her  tongue;  but  she  quite  gushed  —  after  a 

70 


THE    MORMON 

while.  Just  at  first  she  seemed  to  me  a  little 
dazed.  Lizzie  Dean  told  me  she  saw  her  the 
day  that  Augustine  told  her  he  was  in  love 
with  Dora,  and  Lizzie  said  she  seemed  sort  of 
dazed;  Lizzie  said  she  said,  'I  never  dreamed 
of  such  a  thing!'  Well,  then,  afterwards,  she 
gushed.  But  she  is  sincere,  Henry." 

"I  must  say,"  he  said,  "that  the  marriage 
seems  a  sort  of  poetical  justice.  Mother  finds 
clod  in  barn-yard;  waves  wand;  clod  turns 
into  fairy  prince,  marries  daughter,  and  pre- 
sents mother  with  a  yacht.  Yes,  as  you  say,  it 
was  fitting." 

"That's  what  I  said  just  at  first.  But  I 
didn't  know  that  this  intellectual  affaire  was 
going  to  be  kept  up." 

"And  it  is?" 

"My  dear,  she  lives  with  them!  He  can't 
see  himself  in  a  part  until  she  points  it  out. 
They  go  over  every  word  and  gesture  and  in- 
flection together.  His  gratitude  is  one  of  the 
phases  of  the  mental  philandering,  you  see. 
Dora,  I  must  admit,  is  a  gentle  blank,  so  far  as 
his  art  goes.  She's  a  nice  little  housekeeper; 
nice  little  mother;  sees  that  his  buttons  are 
sewed  on — if  such  a  celestial  being  has  buttons! 
You  see,  one  woman  ministers  to  his  body  and 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

the  other  to  his  soul.  I  don't  believe  he  could 
live,  as  an  actor,  without  Adele;  her  artistic 
perception  is  more  exquisite  than  that  of  any 
human  creature  I  ever  knew." 

"And  her  moral  perception?" 

"I  tell  you,  they  are  good  people!"  she  said, 
sharply.  "I  thought  you  would  understand, 
Henry." 

"I  guess  I  understand,"  he  told  her;  "there 
are  tragic  possibilities  there,  Jane?" 

"There  are  tragic  probabilities,"  she  said, 
frowning.  "Now,  Henry,  this  is  a  dead,  dead 
secret — but  look  here;  here's  an  illustration  of 
the  way  things  go  in  that  household:  When 
Dora  broke  her  arm  last  summer,  Adele  hap- 
pened to  be  ill;  I  don't  know  what  was  the 
matter  —  rheumatism,  perhaps;  proper  thing 
for  a  grandmother ;  but,  anyhow,  she  was  really 
pretty  sick.  Dora  has  an  uncertain  heart,  and 
the  doctor  was  afraid  to  give  her  ether,  so  the 
setting  of  the  bone  was  a  pretty  trying  business. 
Adele  was  awfully  upset  about  it,  quite  hys- 
terical, and  no  possible  good.  My  dear- 
Augustine  had  to  stay  with  her,  if  you  please ! — 
to  calm  her,  while  the  doctor  fixed  that  poor 
child's  arm.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  such  a 
thing?  He  really  was  distracted,  poor  fellow. 

7* 


THE   MORMON 

I  went  in  that  afternoon,  and  he  told  me  how 
distracted  he  had  been.  'Poor  Mrs.  Wharton 
was  so  distressed  about  Dora,  I  had  to  be  with 
her,'  he  said.  I  felt  like — swearing!" 

"  I  should  like  to  hear  you  swear,  Jane." 

"  Well,  I  did— inside.  But  that's  the  kind  of 
thing  that  happens  all  the  time.  I  tell  you, 
Henry,  there  are  more  ways  than  one  of  break- 
ing the  Seventh  Commandment." 

"Of  course  she  ought  not  to  live  with  them," 
Henry  Austin  said. 

"Of  course  not,"  Mrs.  Strong  agreed;  "but 
how  are  you  going  to  stop  it?" 

"Unless  she  finds  another  genius,  I  admit 
that  the  prospect  is  not  hopeful,"  he  said. 

"  Dear  me,  Henry,  I  wish  you  were  a  genius," 
old  Mrs.  Strong  said,  sighing. 

And  then  she  gave  him  a  plump  hand,  and 
told  him  to  be  sure  and  come  to  her  Thursdays. 
"You  are  good-looking  still,  Henry,"  she  de- 
clared, "and  maybe  I  can  find  a  wife  for  you." 

When  Henry  Austin  buttoned  his  coat  and 
went  out  into  the  rainy  dusk  his  face  was  full 
of  humorous  remembrance.  .  .  .  He  had  com- 
pletely forgotten  those  scars  of  which  he  had 
spoken  to  old  Jane  Strong,  though  when  the 

73 


R.  J/S    MOTHER 

wounds  were  fresh  they  had  smarted  keenly 
enough.  But  he  thought  about  them  now  as 
he  walked  along  to  the  club.  It  was  a  dozen 
years  ago  that  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  this 
sweet-minded  and  brilliant  Adele  Wharton, 
then  newly  a  widow.  There  had  been  no 
chance  for  him.  .  .  .  She  had  lived  for  sixteen 
years  in  hell.  At  the  end  of  that  time  of  brave- 
ly borne  disgust  and  shame  and  pain  her  tor- 
mentor died,  and  she  was  free.  But  the  very 
idea  of  love-making  and  marrying  was  a  horror. 
She  could  hardly  listen  to  Henry  Austin's  dec- 
laration with  decent  appreciation  of  the  honor 
which  any  good  man's  declaration  of  love  is 
to  any  woman.  She  had  said,  hurriedly,  her 
hands  clasping  and  unclasping  in  her  lap: 
"Oh,  please,  Mr.  Austin!  No — no,  it  can't  be. 
It  never  can  be.  I — I  do  thank  you — but 
please!  No,  I  can't — love  you.  I  can  never 
love  anybody — except  Dora." 

Henry  Austin  had  listened  with  downcast 
eyes  and  set  jaw.  Then  he  got  himself  together 
and  said,  gently,  that  she  must  forget  it.  He 
would  not  speak  of  it  again,  he  said.  And 
he  never  did.  After  awhile  he  left  town;  and 
later,  it  chanced  that  he  was  called  to  live 
abroad — and  he  was  not  sorry.  After  all,  if 

74 


THE   MORMON 

you  can't  eat  your  cake,  there  is  no  particular 
happiness  in  just  looking  at  it.  So  he  settled 
down  in  a  small  consulate  in  Italy.  When  his 
party  went  out  of  office  he  found  European  life 
so  much  to  his  taste  that  he  stayed  on.  And  he 
enjoyed  himself  very  well  in  his  way.  He  cer- 
tainly was  not  a  blighted  being.  The  wounds 
had  healed.  If  he  had  scars,  as  he  said,  they 
never  throbbed  or  stung.  They  did  not  throb 
now  as  he  walked  along  in  the  drizzling  Novem- 
ber twilight,  thinking  of  what  Mrs.  Strong 
had  told  him.  In  an  amiably,  impersonal  way 
it  occurred  to  him  that  he  would  like  to  see 
Adele  again,  and  little  Dora.  Dear  little  slip  of 
a  girl  Dora  was,  with  pleasant  eyes  the  color  of 
a  November  leaf;  a  gentle,  honest  child,  very 
adoring  of  her  mother.  Well,  he  would  like  to 
see  them  both  again. 

"Yes,"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  sat  down 
at  dinner  in  his  club  and  opened  his  napkin 
thoughtfully — "  yes,  Adele  was  a  charmer.  Is, 
Jane  Strong  says.  And  yet  she  must  be  fifty. 
Well,  that's  the  right  age  for  a  woman,  when 
one  no  longer  desires  to  sport  with  Amaryllis. 
Charles,  you  may  bring  me — the  best  you've 
got." 

But  as  he  regarded  Charles's  best,  Austin, 
6  75 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

with  comfortable  unconcern,  continued  to  re- 
flect upon  the  story  Mrs.  Strong  had  told  him. 
He  was  pretty  sure  that  Jane  Strong  had  ex- 
aggerated the  situation;  a  man  with  a  pretty 
girl  for  a  wife  can  hardly  be  sentimental,  even 
unconsciously,  about  his  mother-in-law, — even 
if  the  mother-in-law  does  inspire  him  artis- 
tically and  is  a  charmer.  But  he  was  inclined 
to  think  slightingly  of  a  man  who  depended 
upon  a  mother-in-law  or  anybody  else  for  artis- 
tic inspiration.  "He  ought  to  stand  on  his 
own  legs,"  Austin  thought  severely;  and  re- 
marked to  Charles  that  it  seemed  strange  one 
couldn't  get  one's  claret  at  the  right  tem- 
perature anywhere  out  of  one's  own  house. 
Then  he  added  to  himself  that  sometime  he 
would  observe  the  Ware  situation  at  first  hand. 
"But  I  wish  they  didn't  live  so  confoundedly 
far  out  of  town!"  Still,  he  would  call  some 
day.  However,  the  day  was  still  deferred, 
and  before  it  came  he  met  his  old  charmer 
at  Mrs.  Strong's.  There  she  was — the  same 
erect,  slender  creature,  with  beautiful,  interest- 
ed eyes  that  looked  out  with  eager  seriousness 
from  under  her  soft  gray  hair;  her  mouth,  a 
little  cold,  was  large  and  beautifully  cut;  there 
was  still  a  faint  color  in  her  cheek.  She  was, 

76 


THE   MORMON 

of  course,  not  young,  and  yet  one's  first  im- 
pression was  of  youth;  perhaps  because  of 
a  certain  gayety  of  carriage  and  a  buoyant 
movement  of  her  head ;  but,  most  of  all, 
because  of  the  extraordinary  interest  of  her 
glance. 

"Why,  Henry  Austin!"  she  said,  holding  out 
her  two  hands,  as  eagerly  impulsive  as  a  girl. 
"Why,  this  is  perfectly  delightful/1'  In  her 
pleasure  she  did  not  release  his  hand  for  a 
moment,  but  stood  holding  it  in  both  of  hers, 
smiling,  with  candid  eyes,  and  saying  again, 
"This  is  charming,  dear  Mr.  Austin!" 

There  was  such  a  beautiful  friendliness  in  this 
honest  hand -clasp  that  suddenly  the  gray- 
haired  man  was  conscious  of  his  scars.  After 
that  they  sat  down  on  the  yellow  sofa  by  the 
fire  and  talked — or  rather,  he  talked ;  that  was 
the  power  of  the  creature! — a  gentle,  lovely 
power  of  making  people  interested  in  them- 
selves. He  told  her — Heaven  knows  what  he 
did  not  tell  her! — of  the  death  of  a  relative 
which  had  called  him  back  to  America;  of  his 
affairs;  of  his  health,  even;  of  those  pleasant, 
trivial  European  experiences.  Nothing  great, 
nothing  tragic,  nothing  noble ;  just  the  pleasant, 
harmless  experiences  of  a  pleasant,  harmless 

77 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

man.  And  then  her  eye  hardened  and  her 
mouth  grew  grave. 

"And  have  you  written  your  book?" 

"My  book?"  he  said,  a  little  blankly,  and 
laughed  the  pleased  laugh  of  the  person  who  is 
believed  in.  "  Oh  yes ;  you  always  said  I  would 
write  a  book!" 

"I  said  you  could'1  she  corrected  him,  coldly. 
"You  are  lazy,  you  know." 

He  felt  himself  grow  hot  at  the  roots  of  his 
hair  at  the  compliment  of  her  displeasure  and 
confidence.  He  was  suddenly  ashamed  of  all 
his  easy  years,  in  which  the  purpose  of  achieve- 
ment had  gradually  dried  up  and  blown  away. 
And  the  scars  stung  a  little. 

"I  had  nothing  to  write  about,"  he  said, 
easily  jocose. 

"Yes,  you  had,"  she  said,  calmly. 

And  then  somebody  came  up  to  speak  to  her, 
and  Henry  Austin  watched  her  as  she  moved 
about,  always  with  that  young  air  of  buoyant 
expectation.  Yes,  a  charmer  and  a  creator.  . . . 
Look  at  the  girl  with  the  voice,  and  the  painter- 
man,  and — Harris!  He  wondered  if  she  wore 
one  of  Harris's  dresses  ?  It  was  a  mighty  hand- 
some dress  anyhow ;  even  to  his  untutored  male 
eye  it  was  handsome.  She  plainly  had  plenty 

78 


THE   MORMON 

of  money  now.  The  son-in-law's  success  meant 
ease  and  even  wealth  to  his  household,  and  she 
was  a  part  of  his  household.  It  came  over 
Austin,  with  a  ludicrous  sense  of  his  own  fatu- 
ousness, that  he  had  not  said  a  word  about  that 
household,  nor  the  son-in-law,  nor  little  Dora, 
nor  the  baby!  She  had  made  him  talk  so  much 
about  himself  that  he  never  thought  of  her. 
And  the  scars  stung  a  good  deal. 

"  I'm  an  old  fool!"  he  said  to  himself,  smiling. 
"  But  that  is  the  secret  of  it — her  charm  is  that 
she  makes  us  find  ourselves  charming.  Well,  I 
must  go  and  see  little  Dora." 

The  very  next  day  he  went. 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Ware  was  at  home,"  the  man 
said,  "but  Mrs.  Wharton  was  not  receiving. 
Would  he  come  this  way?"  Henry  Austin 
went  that  way,  and  found  himself  in  a  pleasant 
room,  full  of  the  scent  of  violets,  and  with  a 
chuckling  wood  fire  on  the  hearth.  On  a 
round  table  littered  with  books  a  prickly  bronze 
dragon  supported  on  his  scaly  coils  a  shaded 
lamp  in  a  great  blue-and-white  vase ;  beside  it, 
sunk  in  a  deep  chair,  a  girl  was  trying  to  read, 
keeping  all  the  while  a  delicate,  detaining  hand 
on  a  little  being  in  white,  who  was  tumbling 
about  on  her  lap,  and  snatching  at  the  book, 
79 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

and  laughing  and  gurgling,  and  being  told  to 
keep  still — '"mother's  precious!"  The  girl 
looked  up,  a  little  blindly,  narrowing  her  near- 
sighted brown  eyes,  and  the  child,  instantly 
stern  and  suspicious,  subsided  on  her  shoulder. 

"Of  course  you  don't  know  me,  Dora;  it  is 
twelve  years — " 

"Why,  yes,  I  do,"  she  said;  "of  course  I 
do!"  She  got  up  eagerly,  the  sulky  baby  hid- 
ing its  head  in  her  neck.  "Mamma  told  me 
she  saw  you  at  Mrs.  Strong's  yesterday,"  she 
said,  and  held  out  her  pretty  hand. 

He  sat  down  on  the  other  side  of  the  fire  and 
laughed.  "Well,  upon  my  word!  Dora — and 
a  baby!  It's  absurd;  I  believe  it's  a  doll." 

"A  doll!"  she  said,  indignantly.  "Sylvia, 
look  at  the  gentleman!  Come,  goosie,  look  at 
him—" 

Sylvia  silently  burrowed  in  her  shoulder,  and 
Dora  gave  up  in  despair.  ' '  You  little  monkey ! ' ' 
she  said.  "  Mr.  Austin,  she  isn't  always  so  silly. 
And  she's  the  dearest  thing  that  ever  was.  Well, 
you  shall  have  some  tea,  even  if  Sylvia  won't 
speak  to  you." 

"And  your  mother?  She  is  well?"  he  said, 
taking  his  tea  and  looking  at  her  with  his  kind, 
amused  eyes.  "  And  your  husband  ?  Of  course, 

80 


THE  MORMON 

I  have  seen  him.  My  dear,  how  does  it  seem 
to  have  married  a  famous  man?" 

Her  face  was  suddenly  illuminated.  "You 
have  seen  Augustine  ?  In  what  ?  Oh,  Mr.  Aus- 
tin, isn't  he  wonderful?  You  won't  mind  my 
saying  that  he  is  wonderful,  will  you?  And 
yet  you  can't  know  how  wonderful  he  is  until 
you  see  him  playing  with  Sylvia.  Just  sitting 
down  on  the  floor  and  playing  with  her  like — • 
why,  just  like  anybody!  I  will  let  him  know 
you  are  here;  he's  in  the  library.  Oh  yes,  of 
course  I  will.  Mamma  told  him  all  about  you 
last  night,  and  what  talent  you  had.  She  said 
that  some  time  you  would  write  a  great  book. 
What  is  it  to  be  about,  Mr.  Austin  ?  Mamma 
has  a  headache,  and  Sylvia  is  such  a  little  horse- 
marine  when  she  gets  going  that  it  worries  her 
— when  she  has  a  headache.  So  she  has  gone 
to  sit  in  the  library,  and  Augustine  went  in  to 
cheer  her  up.  I'll  go  and  call  him.  There! 
Sylvia  darling,  do  be  good  and  let  mother  go." 

She  put  the  child — a  fluff  of  white  and  rose 
and  gold — down  in  her  chair,  and  it  gazed  sol- 
emnly over  the  cushioned  arm  at  the  stranger, 
while  she  went  to  call  her  husband,  who  came 
immediately;  the  same  large,  gentle  creature, 
with  the  wonderful  face,  whom  Austin  had  seen 

81 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

on  the  stage.  It  was  a  strange  face,  at  once 
luminous  and  frank,  and  without  self -conscious- 
ness ;  yet,  lying  behind  the  simplicity,  there  was 
the  most  profound  emotional  complexity,  held 
always  in  the  leash  of  simple  goodness.  He 
sat  down  and  took  his  little  girl  on  his  knee, 
and  as  he  and  Austin  talked  he  hugged  the 
child  furtively,  whispering  to  her  once  or  twice, 
and  Sylvia  chuckled  loudly  and  whispered  back 
again.  Dora  looked  on  like  a  Madonna. 

A  moment  later  Adele  Wharton  entered,  and, 
somehow,  they  all  turned  to  her  as  people  turn 
to  the  sun — except,  indeed,  the  baby,  who  was 
displeased  at  being  placed  hastily  on  the  floor 
while  her  father  got  up  to  fetch  a  footstool  for 
grandmamma,  and  her  mother  rose  to  put  a 
little  silk  shawl  over  her  shoulders,  and  Henry 
Austin  moved  the  bowl  of  violets  towards  her 
— he  had  the  feeling  that  he  must  do  something, 
and  the  violets  were  nearest  to  hand. 

"Does  Sylvia  bother  you,  Mrs.  Wharton?" 
Augustine  said.  "I'll  carry  her  up-stairs  if 
she  does." 

"Bless  her  little  heart,  no!  If  she  won't 
suddenly  roar,"  she  said;  but  the  husband  and 
wife  exchanged  an  uneasy  glance,  and  Dora 
slipped  away  with  the  child  in  her  arms.  When 

82 


THE   MORMON 

she  came  back  the  other  three  were  talking 
about  Augustine's  last  part;  or,  rather,  his 
mother-in-law  was  talking — very  calmly,  with 
extraordinary  insight  into  the  character,  but 
with  a  cold-blooded  incisiveness  that  made 
Henry  Austin  wince.  The  actor  did  not  wince ; 
he  stood,  his  elbow  on  the  mantel-piece,  listen- 
ing. "Yes,"  he  agreed — "yes;  you  are  right; 
but  if — "  And  then  they  fell  into  argument. 

Dora  and  Henry  Austin  listened — she,  hum- 
bly; he,  with  a  sense  of  watching  something 
grow — watching  clay  take  immortal  form  under 
the  modeller's  hands ! 

"You  won't  mind  our  talking  about  it?" 
Augustine  said,  turning  apologetically  to  his 
guest.  "I  didn't  mean  to  get  into  it,  but  I 
don't  dare  to  lose  Mrs.  Wharton's  idea,  even 
when  I  don't  quite  agree  with  her." 

"You  will  agree  with  me,"  she  said,  simply, 
"when  you  think  it  over.  I  maintain,  Mr. 
Au^in,  that  where  Augustine  is  confronted  by 
the  fact  of  his  own  complicity  in  the  crime — 
you  remember,  he  has  not  been  conscious  of 
complicity? — I  mean  in  the  Prince's  part; — 
his  astonishment  will  keep  him  silent  for  a 
perceptible  space  of  time.  The  Prince  will 
not  instantly  cry  out  and  deny  it.  Augustine 

83 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

vociferates  at  once  in  his  astonishment.  That 
is  a  false  note.  Unless  the  Prince  is  silent — 
while  he  is  taking  it  in,  so  to  speak — he  has  not 
been  unconscious  that  he  had  been  treacherous. 
Do  you  see?" 

"How  do  you  know  so  much  about  crimes?" 
Henry  Austin  said,  frivolously.  "Are  you  an 
unconscious  pickpocket,  dear  lady?" 

"If  I  Were  not  unconscious  I  would  declaim 
the  instant  you  found  me  out,"  she  said, 
laughing,  "as  Augustine  does." 

A  Week  later,  when  Henry  Austin  saw  Ware 
again  in  this  part,  it  was  obvious  that  he  had 
come  to  agree  with  his  mother-in-law,  for  in 
the  Prince's  silent  second  of  horrified  self -rev- 
elation, Augustine's  creator's  hand  was  obvious. 

"It's  just  what  Jane  Strong  said,"  Mr.  Aus- 
tin reflected;  "she  makes  the  part  for  him. 
Yes;  that  silence  is  great  art!" 

Austin,  with  a  grin  at  his  own  absurdity,  did 
actually  begin  that  winter  the  long-delayed 
book ;  and,  consequently,  he  saw  very  much  of 
the  Ware  household.  The  intimacy  began  in 
his  going  out  often  to  Augustine's  house  to  ask 
Mrs.  Wharton's  advice  about  his  writing;  but 
twice  she  went  off  "on  the  road,"  as  she  ex^ 

84 


THE   MORMON 

pressed  it,  gayly,  to  see  her  son-in-law  in  one 
or  another  part,  so  that,  finally,  the  author  had 
to  plod  along  by  himself.  But  the  habit  of 
going  to  Linden  Hill  had  been  started,  and  he 
kept  it  up,  even  when  his  critic  was  not  there. 
His  calls  began  to  grow  very  frequent  about 
the  middle  of  January,  during  Mrs,  Wharton's 
first  absence.  He  had  dropped  in  after  dinner 
one  night,  and  found  Sylvia  half  asleep  in  her 
mother's  arms. 

"  I  ought  to  have  put  her  to  bed,"  Dora  said, 
rather  shamefacedly,  "but  the  evenings  are  so 
long." 

After  that  Henry  Austin  came  certainly  four 
nights  out  of  seven;  and  considering  that  the 
distance  was  such  as  to  make  a  cab  too  ex- 
pensive and  reduce  him  to  the  detested  cable- 
cars,  this  implied  devotion.  Dora  had  not 
gone  with  her  husband  on  his  tour,  for  Sylvia 
could  not  be  pulled  about  the  country  in  zero 
weather.  And  when,  in  February,  Augustine, 
in  a  fever  of  anxiety  for  criticism,  summoned 
Mrs.  Wharton,  she  had  to  go  alone. 

"So  behold  me!"  Adele  Wharton  said,  with 
one  archly  lifted  eyebrow — "I  am  to  be  a 
grandmotherly  first-nighter!  Isn't  it  absurd? 
I  start  to-night." 

85 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"Mamma  is  so  good  to  Augustine  and  me," 
Dora  said,  the  next  day,  when  Henry  Austin 
found  her  alone,  playing  with  the  baby  on  the 
hearth-rug. 

"  I  see  by  the  morning  paper  that  he  is  going 
to  bring  out  one  of  the  old  comedies  in  St. 
Louis,"  Austin  said.  "Which  one?" 

"Oh,"  Dora  said,  "dear  me!  how  stupid  I 
am!  I  meant  to  ask  mamma,  but  she  went  off 
in  such  a  hurry  she  forgot  to  tell  me,  and  I 
forgot  to  ask  her.  I  really  am  ashamed.  She 
just  said  he  had  written  '  about  the  old  comedy 
scheme.'  I  must  remind  him  to  tell  me." 

"And  she  has  actually  gone  to  St.  Louis?" 
Austin  said.  "  She  is  as  energetic  as  she  was 
twenty  years  ago.  My  dear,  I  doubt  if  you 
will  ever  be  as  young  as  your  mother." 

Dora  pulled  Sylvia's  frock  straight,  and  put 
her  cheek  against  the  little  yellow  head.  "I 
guess  not,"  she  said.  "I'm  not  clever,  you 
know." 

"You  are  better  than  clever,"  he  told  her, 
smiling ;  "  you  are  good. ' ' 

At  that  she  raised  her  head  and  said,  sharply, 
but  laughing,  "Well,  but  mamma  is  good  and 
clever;  I  don't  see  why  I  couldn't  have  com- 
bined them  both,  too!" 

86 


THE  MORMON 

She  pulled  herself  up  from  the  floor  a  little 
wearily,  and,  sitting  down  in  her  low  chair,  began 
to  make  tea  for  her  visitor;  then  she  noticed 
that  he  looked  tired,  and  when  he  confessed 
to  a  cold  her  maternal  concern  was  delicious. 
Austin  laughed,  but  he  liked  it.  All  men  like 
it;  they  like  to  be  coddled — and  they  despise 
the  man  who  is  coddled.  Dora  shook  her  head 
anxiously;  then  she  went  up-stairs  and  brought 
back  a  small  bottle,  and  counted  out  into  the 
pink  palm  of  her  young  hand  four  two-grain 
quinine  pills. 

"  You  will  take  one  now,  and  three  when  you 
go  to  bed.  And — well,  I  think  I'll  give  you 
three  for  to-morrow,  too ;  one  at  breakfast,  one 
at  noon,  one  at  night." 

"  Oh,  I  guess  I'll  just  take  a  drink  of  whiskey 
when  I  go  to  bed — "  he  began,  meekly. 

"Quinine  is  much  better  for  you,"  she  told 
him,  sternly.  "  And  telephone  me  in  the  morn- 
ing, so  I  can  see  whether  you  ought  to  go  out. 
Now,  you  will  be  careful,  won't  you,  Mr.  Aus- 
tin?" 

When  he  went  away  she  insisted  upon  calling 
a  carriage,  and  wanted  to  bundle  him  up  in  one 
of  Augustine's  overcoats.  But  there  he  drew 
the  line.  He  went  back  to  town  amused,  but, 

87 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

somehow,  warmed  about  his  heart.  When  you 
are  a  bachelor,  and  fifty-five,  pretty  and  serious 
young  women  do  not  often  concern  themselves 
with  your  quinine  pills.  He  was  housed  for  a 
day  or  two,  and  when  he  went  back  to  report 
himself  cured  she  was  very  stern  with  him 
about  the  care  of  his  health. 

"What  does  Augustine  do  without  his  head 
nurse?"  he  said,  kindly. 

Dora  sighed.  "I  often  worry  a  good  deal 
about  him.  Mamma  doesn't  know  anything 
about  sickness;  and,  of  course,  Augustine  is  just 
a  man.  But  I  gave  him  a  little  medicine-case, 
and  wrote  out  directions  as  to  what  he  was  to 
do  if  he  took  cold  or  anything.  But  I  do 
worry." 

She  used  to  talk  to  this  kind  old  friend  very 
simply  and  intimately  of  her  husband  and  his 
goodness  and  his  greatness.  And  sometimes, 
after  such  a  talk,  he  would  hear  her  sigh. 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  art,  Mr.  Aus- 
tin," she  said,  humbly,  "but  I  know  Augustine 
is  wonderful." 

"Yes,  he  is  wonderful,"  he  would  assure  her, 
heartily.  "But  it's  hard  for  him  to  have  to 
be  away  from  you  and  Sylvia  so  much.  I  know 
that  must  be  a  great  trial  to  him." 

88 


THE   MORMON 

She  would  look  at  him,  when  he  said  things 
like  this,  with  wistful  eyes,  and  say:  "Yes,  of 
course." 

Dora  did  not  know  many  people,  though  her 
mother's  circle  was  very  large.  She  was  too 
shy  to  make  acquaintances  readily ;  and  as  for 
making  friends,  she  did  not  want  any ;  Sylvia  and 
Sylvia's  father  filled  her  little  heart.  But  by- 
and-by  she  made  room  in  it  for  Henry  Austin. 
Indeed,  she  could  hardly  help  it,  for  the  silent, 
elderly  man,  with  those  amused  eyes,  somehow 
would  not  be  denied;  he  came  to  see  her,  and 
sat  by  her  fireside  like  a  faithful,  grizzled  old 
dog;  and  by-and-by  Sylvia  got  so  used  to  him 
that  she  sat  on  his  knee  while  Dora  made  his  tea, 
and  Dora  herself  confided  her  troubles  about 
her  parlor-maid,  or  her  fears  that  it  would  be 
extravagant  to  get  a  new  hat.  "I  don't  really 
need  it,  do  I,"  she  would  say,  anxiously.  And 
Austin  made  haste  to  assure  her  that  she  did 
need  it.  In  fact,  Henry  Austin  began  to  think 
that  little  Dora  needed,  and  must  have,  every- 
thing she  wanted. 

And  so  the  winter  slipped  away,  and  the  girl 
and  the  baby  sat  by  the  fire  and  thought  and 
talked  of  the  husband  and  father's  triumphs. 
The  little  wife  carried  Augustine's  letters  about 

89 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

with  her  in  a  small  gray  bag  lined  with  pink 
silk  and  sweet  with  orris;  she  would  take  them 
out  and  read  them  over  and  over;  when  it  was 
too  dark  to  see  to  read,  just  before  the  lamps 
were  lighted,  she  would  bend  down  to  catch  the 
firelight  on  the  brief  pages,  or  else  repeat  them 
to  herself  out  of  her  heart.  He  told  her  in 
every  letter  how  much  he  owed  her  mother; 
and  he  kept  Mrs.  Wharton  so  constantly  with 
him  that  she  told  his  manager  she  belonged  to 
the  troupe,  and  should  presently  begin  to  draw 
her  salary.  Then,  in  April,  the  company  came 
back  to  town  for  a  month's  engagement.  And 
by  that  time  Henry  Austin  had  grown  to 
feel  a  great  tenderness  for  Dora — the  little, 
lonely  mother,  hearing  in  the  silent  winter  days 
the  echoes  of  the  extraordinary  applause  that 
followed  her  husband's  progress  through  the 
country.  On  some  of  those  faithful  visits  to 
Linden  Hill,  Austin  had  felt  a  vague  anger  at 
his  old  love;  yet  when  she  came  back  in  the 
spring,  a  week  or  two  before  her  son-in-law, 
and  took  her  pleasant  place  in  her  little  world, 
he  forgot  his  anger.  Why  should  he  be  angry  ? 
Adele  took  so  seriously  and  nobly  her  great 
responsibility;  she  knew,  without  any  false 
flutter  of  negations,  that  Augustine  Ware 

90 


THE   MORMON 

would  probably  have  been  in  his  barn-yard 
yet  if  she  had  not  divined  his  genius — and  now, 
here  he  was,  a  man  truly  great  in  his  pro- 
fession, a  man  of  real  moment  in  his  world! 
She  spoke  of  him  often  to  her  old  friend,  yet 
not  so  often  that  Austin  felt  himself  forgotten 
or  his  own  possibilities  overlooked.  And  as 
there  was  always  the  compliment  of  severity 
and  displeasure  at  his  indolence,  he  felt,  some- 
how or  other,  as  if  he  were  as  important  to  her 
as  was  her  famous  son-in-law.  And  so,  in 
spite  of  the  dreary  winter,  in  spite  of  Dora's 
lonely  little  face,  his  anger  gradually  evapo- 
rated. In  fact,  those  scars,  quiescent  during 
the  winter,  stung  very  perceptibly. 

In  the  fortnight  before  Augustine's  return, 
Mrs.  Wharton  was  busy  making  plans  for  his 
London  season,  certain  arrangements  for  which 
had  been  left  in  her  hands.  She  spoke  of  these 
plans  to  Dora,  but  only  very  briefly.  "Not 
yet,"  she  would  say,  with  shining  eyes.  "  Wait 
till  I  get  things  clear  in  my  own  mind.  Then 
I'll  tell  you  all  about  it." 

And  Dora  waited. 

When  Ware  came  home  the  first  thing  he 
Baid  was  that  Dora  was  thinner;  but  he  had 
hardly  time  to  speak  of  it  and  scold  her  for  it, 

7  91 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

a  worried  wrinkle  coming  between  his  eyebrows, 
and  to  kiss  Sylvia,  and  say  she  was  a  villain  to 
have  let  her  mother  get  thin,  when  Adele  called 
him  into  the  library  to  write  an  answer  to  a 
despatch. 

"I  think  you  had  better  decline,"  she  said, 
"because — "  and  then  the  door  closed. 

Dora  picked  up  a  bit  of  sewing,  and  Henry 
Austin  saw  that  she  put  the  needle  in  with 
uncertain  fingers.  He  got  up  abruptly,  and 
said  good-night,  and  betook  himself  to  his  club. 

"Mormonism!"  he  said  to  himself,  as  old  Mrs. 
Strong  had  said  six  months  before.  "And  yet 
they  are  both  such  good  people!" 

As  he  looked  on  during  the  next  few  weeks 
the  anger  began  to  come  back.  And  one  day — 
it  was  Sunday,  and  all  morning  he  and  Dora 
sat  outside  the  closed  door  of  the  library, 
waiting  for  Augustine  to  finish  a  discussion  with 
his  mother-in-law,  and  take  a  walk  with  Dora 
and  Sylvia, — on  that  Sunday  morning  Adele 
Wharton's  old  friend  asked  himself  a  question: 
"Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it, 
Henry  Austin?" 

He  asked  it  hotly,  and  the  scars  did  not  throb 
at  all. 

Well,  there  was,  of  course,  one  thing  he  could 
92 


THE   MORMON 

try  to  do ;  and  very  likely  he  would  not  succeed. 
He  had  failed  the  first  time  he  tried,  and  he  had 
more  to  offer  then.  Still,  he  could  try.  .  .  . 
So  the  very  next  afternoon  he  gathered  together 
the  manuscript  on  which  he  had  worked  all  win- 
ter— a  pleasing,  well-bred,  ineffective  manuscript, 
much  like  the  pleasing,  well-bred  man  himself — 
and  he  took  it  to  the  creator  out  at  Linden  Hill. 

She  was  in  the  library  writing  notes  at 
Augustine's  great  mahogany  table,  with  its 
clutter  of  silver  furnishings,  and  its  orderly 
piles  of  docketed  papers  and  letters  —  the 
orderliness  was  hers.  She  looked  up  at  Henry 
Austin,  over  her  glasses,  with  charming  welcome. 

"How  nice  this  is!  What!  did  you  bring 
your  manuscript?  Good.  I  want  to  talk  to 
you  about  it." 

Austin  let  her  talk,  and  bore  the  relentless 
surgery  of  her  criticism  without  flinching,  for 
the  reason  that  he  hardly  heard  it.  She  was 
genuinely  interested,  however,  and  after  the 
first  ruthless  slashes,  she  found  herself  able  to 
praise  and  to  appreciate.  But  in  the  midst  of 
her  appreciation,  Henry  Austin  suddenly  push- 
ed the  manuscript  aside,  and,  leaning  over  the 
table  that  was  between  them,  he  said; 

"Adele,  I  think  you  had  better  marry  me," 
93 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Her  dumfounded  look  was  not  flattering,  but 
the  momentary  speechlessness  of  her  astonish- 
ment gave  him  the  opportunity  to  explain. 

"You  know  I  wanted  you  years  ago,  and  I 
want  you  now.  But  never  mind  that.  I  think 
you'd  better  marry  me  for  other  reasons — that 
is,  if  you  don't  dislike  me,  Adele?" 

"Of  course  I  don't  dislike  you,"  she  said, 
when  she  could  get  her  breath,  "but,  my  dear 
Henry,  you  are  raving  crazy!  I  am  a  grand- 
mother. Have  you  forgotten  that?" 
.  "  Not  at  all.  That's  the  reason  we  had  better 
get  married.  Adele,  you  are  robbing  Augus- 
tine, and  you've  got  to  stop  it." 

In  her  bewilderment  she  was  not  immediate- 
ly angry.  She  repeated,  vaguely:  "Robbing? 
Augustine?  Yes;  you  are  certainly  mad !" 

"  No,  I'm  not  mad — at  least,  not  in  the  sense 
you  mean.  It's  like  this :  You've  made  Augus- 
tine— well  and  good.  You  dug  him  up  out  of 
a  barn-yard  and  put  him  on  his  feet  on  the 
stage  —  well  and  good.  Now  let  him  alone! 
He  has  a  right  to  be  let  alone.  Stop  being  a 
crutch  to  the  fellow.  Let  him  walk;  let  him 
run;  let  him  fly  if  he  can.  Or  else  let  him 
tumble  down  in  the  ditch.  But  do,  for  Heaven's 
sake,  let  him  alone!" 

94 


THE   MORMON 

By  this  time  the  anger  in  his  eyes  had  kindled 
a  flame  in  hers;  a  dark  color  came  up  into  her 
face. 

"  Mr.  Austin,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand — " 

"I  think  I  could  make  you  understand,"  he 
said,  dryly,  "but  I'd  rather  not." 

"Rather  not?" 

"Let  me  make  what  I  said  about  Ware 
clearer.  You  know,  Adele,  how  profoundly  I 
admire  his  genius,  and  how  entirely  I  know 
that  his  genius  would  never  have  found  ex- 
pression without  you?  Well,  there  has  come 
a  point  in  his  development  when  your  person- 
ality is  dominating  it,  and  limiting  it,  and — " 

Austin  paused,  in  a  cold  perspiration  of 
effort.  To  tell  a  small  truth  and  keep  quite 
clear  of  a  large  truth  was  not  easy  to  a  tem- 
peramentally truthful  man.  "You  are  cramp- 
ing the  man  fearfully  —  ah  —  I  should  say  a 
good  deal.  You  know  I  speak  as  an  old  friend, 
Adele?" 

There  was  a  pause.  Anger  died  out  of  her 
eyes,  and  her  face  whitened. 

"You  think  I  am — injuring  Augustine?"  she 
said,  in  a  low  voice. 

"My  dear  Adele,  there  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt  of  it." 

95 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"Henry,  do — do  other  people — think  so?" 

"Indeed  they  do!" 

She  put  her  hands  over  her  face  in  silence, 
while  Austin  cruelly  repeated  certain  illuminat- 
ing gossip  that  he  had  heard.  He  saw  her  shiver. 

"You  mean  to  be  a  true  friend,"  she  said, 
brokenly.  "I  know  you  do.  I  thank  you." 

At  that  he  winced;  but  he  said,  cheerfully: 
"Well,  then,  we'll  go  off,  you  and  I;  we'll  go 
abroad  and  leave  him.  He'll  land  on  his  feet. 
He  is  the  right  stuff.  But  if  you  stay — " 

"I  will  go,"  she  said,  in  a  low  voice. 

"Of  course,"  he  said.  "Well,  we'll  get  mar- 
ried at  once,  and — " 

"Oh  no.  No,  I  don't  mean  that.  I'll  just 
go  away." 

"You  can't  do  that,  Adele,"  he  told  her, 
bluntly.  "Augustine  and  Dora  would  never 
consent  to  it.  You  know  they  wouldn't.  But 
if  they  think  you  are  going  to  be  married,  and 
have  your  own  life  —  if  you  undertake  me, 
Adele,  and  create  me,  as  you  might  say — they 
will  never  see  through  it;  they  will  never  un- 
derstand why  you  do  it." 

She  shook  her  head,  speechlessly;  and  then,  a 
moment  later,  she  said,  in  a  low  voice:  "It  is 
impossible.  But  I  thank  you." 

96   , 


"DORA   LOOKED   UP  AT  AUSTIN  AND   HELD  OUT  TWO   SHAKING    HANDS 

TO    HIM" 


THE   MORMON 

"No!  no!  that's  the  only  way  out  of  it;  it's 
all  settled,"  he  said,  keeping,  with  an  effort,  the 
note  of  interrogation  out  of  his  voice.  "You 
consent —  He  stopped  abruptly,  for  the  door 
opened  and  Dora  entered.  "Oh,"  he  said, 
getting  rather  red,  as  an  elderly  lover  might 
well  do — "oh,  here's  Dora;  Dora,  listen — " 

"Don't,"  her  mother  said,  faintly. 

But  Henry  Austin  went  on,  glibly:  "Dora, 
I  say — where's  Augustine  ?  Oh,  there  you  are, 
old  man;  and  Sylvia  too.  Good.  Well,  my 
dear  people,  I  have  a  piece  of  news  for  you — " 

"Henry!"  Adele  Wharton  interrupted. 

"  Dora,  my  dear,  your  lovely  mother  has  prom- 
ised to  marry  me,  and  we  are  going  abroad!" 

There  was  a  moment's  silence.  Augustine 
Ware  blenched  suddenly. 

"  What  ?"  he  said,  under  his  breath.  "  What?" 

Dora  sat  down  quickly,  as  if  faint;  then 
there  were  confused  outcries  and  exclamations. 

"But,"  Ware  began,  violently,  and  stopped; 
for  Dora  rose  and  ran  to  him,  sobbing  as  she 
ran.  She  put  her  arms  about  his  neck  in  a 
storm  of  tears. 

"Oh,  Augustine!  oh,  Augustine!"  she  said; 
and  cried  so  that  Ware  lifted  her  in  his  arms 
and  carried  her  to  a  chair,  into  which  she  tum- 

97 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

bled  in  a  sobbing  heap.  They  all  stood  about 
her  in  helpless  distress,  Adele  saying,  reproach- 
fully: 

"Oh,  Henry!  how  could  you?  Dora — dar- 
ling!— I  won't  do  it;  I  won't  leave  you.  Oh, 
Henry,  how  could  you  frighten  her  so  ?  I  won't 
leave  you,  Dora,  child." 

At  that  Dora  lifted  her  head  from  Augus- 
tine's shoulder,  and  stared,  catching  her  lip 
between  her  teeth,  and  shaking  very  much. 
The  mother  knelt  beside  her,  stroking  her  poor 
little  thin  hand. 

"Darling,  Henry  didn't  understand;  I  had 
not  said  yes;  he  thought  I  did,  but  I  didn't; 
and  I—" 

Dora  looked  up  at  Austin  and  held  out  two 
shaking  hands  to  him.  "Oh,  Mr.  Austin!  yes 
— she  will.  Augustine,  you  will  make  her? 
Yes,  mother,  yes.  I  am  glad  to — to — to  have 
you  happy.  Say  yes!  Augustine,  tell  her,  tell 
her  to  say  yes!" 

Augustine,  very  pale,  stammered  something 
ending  with  a  vague  "Of  course,  we  want  you 
to  be  happy;  but — " 

Henry  Austin  swore  under  his  breath;  then, 
setting  his  jaw,  he  looked  from  Ware  to  Dora, 
and  back  again  to  Ware.  Instantly  Augustine's 

98 


THE   MORMON 

face  crimsoned.  "No!"  he  said,  angrily;  "noth- 
ing of  the  kind!  You — " 

But  the  other  man  was  not  listening ;  he  turn- 
ed away,  and,  stooping  down  to  help  Adele  to 
her  feet,  said,  in  her  ear: 

"Tell  the  child  you  will,  for  Heaven's  sake! 
Can't  you  understand?" 

And  she,  looking  at  the  husband  and  wife, 
stood  dumb  before  them. 

"We're  going  to  be  married  next  month, 
Dora,  my  dear,"  Austin  said. 

Adele,  still  speechless  and  very  white,  smiled, 
and  gave  him  her  hand. 


MANY    WATERS 


MANY    WATERS 


WELL?" 
"True  bill;  I'm  awfully  sorry." 

Thomas  Fleming  took  his  cigar  out  of  his 
mouth,  and  contemplated  the  lighted  end.  He 
did  not  speak.  The  other  man,  his  lawyer,  who 
had  brought  him  the  unwelcome  news,  began 
to  make  the  best  of  it. 

"Of  course,  it's  an  annoyance;  but — " 

"Well,  yes.  It's  an  annoyance,"  Fleming 
said,  dryly. 

Bates  chuckled.  "It  strikes  me,  Tom,  con- 
sidering the  difference  between  this  and  the 
real  thing,  that  'annoyance'  is  just  about  the 
right  word  to  use?" 

Fleming  leaned  over  and  knocked  the  ashes 
from  his  cigar  into  his  waste-basket.  He  was 
silent. 

"As  for  Hammond,  he  won't  have  a  leg  to 
103 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

stand  on.  I  don't  know  what  Ellis  &  Grew 
meant  by  letting  him  take  the  case  before  the 
grand  jury.  He  won't  have  a  leg  to  stand  on!" 

"Give  me  a  light,  will  you,  Bates?  This 
cigar  has  gone  out  again." 

"What  has  Hammond  got,  anyhow?"  Bates 
continued,  pulling  a  box  of  wax  matches  out 
of  his  waistcoat-pocket.  "  What's  he  got  to  sup- 
port his  opinion  that  you  pinched  $3000  from 
the  Hammond  estate?  His  memory  of  some- 
thing somebody  said  twelve  years  ago,  and  an 
old  check.  Well,  we  won't  do  a  thing  to  'em!" 

Fleming  rose,  and  began  to  pull  down  his 
desk  top  with  a  slow  clatter.  "  Hammond's  a 
fool,"  he  said,  "and  you'll  punch  a  hole  in  his 
evidence  in  five  minutes.  But  it's — well,  as 
you  say,  it's  'annoying." 

The  lawyer  got  up  briskly,  and  reached  for 
his  hat.  "  What  we  want  now  is  to  get  the  case 
near  the  head  of  the  list  as  soon  as  we  can. 
Get  it  over!  Get  it  over!  Then,  if  you  want 
revenge,  we  can  turn  round  and  hit  back  with 
'  malicious  prosecution ' !"  He  laughed,  good-na- 
turedly, and  shrugged  himself  into  his  overcoat. 

His  client  stood  absently  locking  and  un- 
locking his  desk.     "I  suppose  it  will  be  in  the 
evening  papers?"  he  said. 
104 


MANY   WATERS 

"Oh,  I  guess  so;  the  findings  of  the  grand 
jury  were  reported  at  eleven  this  morning. 
Plenty  of  time  for  the  first  editions." 

"  Then  I'll  take  an  early  train  home,"  Thomas 
Fleming  said,  quickly.  "  My  wife —  "  he  paused. 

"Doesn't  Mrs.  Fleming  know  about  it?"  the 
lawyer  asked,  with  a  surprised  look. 

"No,"  the  other  man  said,  gloomily;  "I 
didn't  want  her  to  worry  over  it,  so  I  didn't 
tell  her.  But,  of  course,  now  she's  got  to  know." 

"Yes,"  Bates  said,  sympathetically;  "but, 
after  all,  Tom,  it's  a  small  matter;  its  only  a 
nuisance.  You  tell  her  I  say  it's  a  sure  thing." 

Fleming  let  his  key-ring  drop,  jingling,  into 
his  pocket.  Except  for  the  occasional  faint 
clangor  of  cars  down  in  the  streets,  the  room, 
high  up  in  the  big  office  building,  was  quiet; 
but  its  quiet  was  the  muffled,  inarticulate 
never-ending  roar  of  living,  rising  from  below. 
Fleming  sighed,  and,  turning  his  back  to  his 
lawyer,  stared  absently  out  of  the  window. 
Before  him,  in  the  afternoon  dusk,  lay  the 
struggling,  panting  city.  Far  off  to  the  south  he 
could  see  the  water,  and  the  ferry-boats  crawling 
like  beetles  back  and  forth.  Below,  the  deep 
canons  of  the  streets  were  blurred  with  creep- 
ing yellow  fog ;  but  higher  up,  above  the  crowd- 

105 


R.  J.'S  MOTHER 

ing  roofs  and  chimneys  and  occasional  spires, 
the  air  was  clearer;  it  was  full  of  tumultuous 
movement — sudden  jets  of  white  steam  bal- 
looning from  hundreds  of  escape- pipes ;  shuffling, 
shifting  coils  of  black  smoke;  here  and  there 
the  straining  quiver  of  flags,  whipping  out  from 
their  masts ;  and,  over  all,  the  leaden  November 
skies.  Fleming,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  stood 
staring  and  listening,  with  unseeing  eyes,  un- 
hearing  ears.  The  lawyer  behind  him,  at  the 
office  door,  hesitated. 

"Fleming,  really,  it  isn't  going  to  amount 
to  anything.  Of  course,  I  know  how  you  feel 
about  Mrs.  Fleming,  but — " 

The  man  at  the  window  turned  round. 
"Rather  than  have  her  disturbed,  I'd  com- 
promise on  it.  I'd  pay  him.  I'd — " 

The  lawyer  raised  his  eyebrows.  "This 
time,  I  think,  Hammond  is  honest.  I  guess  he 
really  believes  he  has  a  case;  of  course,  Ellis  & 
Grew  know  better,  but  they  are  sharks,  and 
you'd  be  encouraging  blackmail  to  compromise. 
Anyway,  you  couldn't  do  it.  Grew  volunteer- 
ed the  information  that  their  man  'couldn't 
be  bought  off';  he  meant  to  put  it  through, 
Grew  said.  I  told  him  they'd  got  the  wrong 
pig  by  the  ear.  I  told  him  that  you  weren't 
106 


MANY   WATERS 

the  kind  of  man  who  purchases  peace  at  the 
cost  of  principle.  They're  shysters,  and  I  gave 
'em  plain  talk.  Now,  don't  let  Mrs.  Fleming 
take  it  to  heart.  Tell  her  I  say  it  will  be  a 
triumph!" 

He  went  off,  laughing;  his  client,  looking 
blankly  out  of  the  window  again,  heard  his 
step  in  the  corridor,  and  then  the  clang  of  the 
elevator  door.  Thomas  Fleming  stood  staring 
out  over  the  house-tops,  absorbed  in  frowning 
thought,  until  suddenly  the  gray  afternoon 
was  stabbed  by  the  flickering  glare  of  arc- 
lights;  and  at  that,  with  a  start,  he  looked  at 
his  watch.  Then  he  took  up  his  black  cloth 
bag  and  poked  about  in  it  among  some  papers; 
then  unlocked  his  desk,  and  found  what  he 
had  been  looking  for — a  box  of  candy  for  his 
wife.  He  slipped  it  into  his  bag,  and  a  minute 
or  two  later  he  was  down  in  the  muddy  dusk 
of  the  street.  As  he  moved  along  with  the 
steady  surge  of  the  homeward-bound  crowd 
he  looked  doubtfully  into  the  flower-stores;  he 
wished  he  had  bought  violets  for  Amy  instead 
of  candy ;  he  had  taken  her  candy  last  Saturday. 
He  debated  whether  he  had  not  better  get  the 
violets,  too,  but  decided  against  them,  because 
Amy  was  stern  with  him  when  he  was  extra  va- 

8  107 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

gant  for  her  sake.  She  never  saw  extrava- 
gance in  any  purchase  he  made  on  his  own 
account!  He  smiled  to  himself  at  the  thought 
of  her  sweet  severity. 

"Amy  keeps  me  in  order,"  he  used  to  say, 
whimsically;  "she  insists  that  I  shall  be  her 
best;  it  appears  that  my  own  best  isn't  good 
enough  for  her!"  This  she  would  always  deny, 
indignantly,  and  indeed  justly;  for  Thomas 
Fleming  stood  on  his  own  legs,  morally,  in  his 
community.  But  in  the  ten  years  of  their 
married  life  no  doubt  her  ideals  had,  in  small 
matters,  created  his.  With  his  indolent  good- 
nature, he  had  found  it  easier  to  agree  with 
Amy's  delicate  austerities  of  thought  than  to 
dispute  them.  Her  hair-splitting  in  matters  of 
conscience  always  amused  him,  and  sometimes 
touched  him,  but  he  accepted  her  standards 
of  duty  with  real  tenderness — which,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  was  as  good  as  conviction. 
Gradually,  too,  she  pushed  him,  gently,  before 
he  knew  it,  into  civic  affairs;  not  in  any  very 
large  way;  perhaps  hardly  more  than  in  a 
readiness  to  do  his  part  as  a  citizen;  but  such 
readiness  was  sincere,  and  had  given  him  a 
reputation  for  public  -  spiritedness  in  which 
Amy  took  a  quiet  pride.  He  had  never  had 
108 


MANY   WATERS 

time,  though  he  had  had  opportunity,  to  hold 
office,  because  his  business  demanded  his  entire 
energy ;  and,  in  fact,  he  had  to  be  energetic,  for 
he  had  hardly  any  capital,  his  income  being 
almost  entirely  dependent  upon  his  earnings; 
so  he  was  not  at  all  a  rich  man — except,  indeed, 
as  he  was  rich  in  the  honor  and  respect  of  the 
community  and  the  love  of  a  woman  like  Amy. 

But  then,  if  they  were  not  rich  in  this  world's 
goods,  neither  were  they  poor.  There  had  been 
happy,  anxious  years,  when  they  were  first 
married,  when  they  had  ridiculously  little  to 
live  on;  but  in  those  days  Amy  had  steered 
their  housekeeping  bark  between  all  rocks  of 
hardship,  as  well  as  past  breakers  of  extrav- 
agance. Even  now,  when  things  were  easier 
each  year,  Amy  was  still  prudent  and  economi- 
cal— at  least,  where  she  herself  was  concerned. 

So  Fleming,  with  a  faint  smile,  forbore  to  add 
violets  to  his  box  of  candy.  After  all,  it  was 
his  thought  that  would  bring  the  delicate  and 
happy  color  up  into  her  face,  not  the  gift  itself. 
.  .  .  They  were  very  happy,  these  two ;  perhaps 
because  they  were  only  two.  There  had  been  a 
baby,  but  it  had  only  lived  long  enough  to  draw 
them  very  close  together,  and  not,  as  some- 
times happens,  to  push  them  apart  again;  and 
109 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

there  were  many  friends.  But  they  were  alone 
in  their  household  and  in  the  real  heart  of  life. 
Naturally,  all  the  thwarted  maternity  of  the 
woman  was  added  to  the  wife's  love;  and  the 
paternal  instinct  of  the  man  (which  is,  for  the 
most  part,  only  amusement  and  the  sense  of  pro- 
tecting and  giving  joy)  was  centred  in  his  wife. 
So  it  was  no  wonder  that  that  night,  going  home 
on  the  train,  he  winced  at  the  thought  of  telling 
her  that  that  "fool  Hammond,"  who  "would 
not  have  a  leg  to  stand  on,"  had  prosecuted  him 
criminally  for  misappropriation  of  funds  as 
trustee  of  old  Mrs.  Hammond's  estate.  The 
trust  had  been  closed  at  her  death,  a  month  or 
two  before,  and  the  estate  handed  over  to  her 
son — this  same  Hammond,  who  "thought  he 
remembered"  hearing  old  Smith  say,  twelve 
years  before,  that  he,  Smith;  had  paid  the 
Hammond  estate  $17,400  for  a  parcel  of  land; 
whereas  Fleming's  trustee  account  put  the  sum 
received  at  $14,400. 

Amy's  husband  set  his  teeth  as  he  sat  there 
in  the  train,  planning  how  he  should  tell  her. 
Her  incredulous  anger  he  foresaw;  and  her 
anxiety — the  anxiety  of  the  woman  unversed 
in  legal  matters.  He  damned  Hammond  in 
his  heart;  and  pulled  out  his  evening  paper, 
no 


MANY   WATERS 

There  it  was,  in  all  the  shamelessness  of  the 
flaring  headline:  "A  Leading  Citizen  Indicted!" 
and  so  on.  The  big  black  letters  were  like  a 
blow  in  the  face.  Fleming  felt  that  every 
commuter  on  the  train  was  looking  over  the 
top  of  a  newspaper  at  him.  He  found  himself 
glancing  furtively  across  the  aisle  to  see  what 
page  of  the  paper  another  passenger  was  read- 
ing; he  thanked  God  that  none  of  the  men  he 
knew  well  were  on  the  five  o'clock,  so  he  would 
not  have  to  listen  to  friendly  assurances  of 
astonishment  at  Hammond's  impudence.  His 
skin  was  prickly  over  his  whole  body;  his  ears 
were  hot.  And  he  had  to  tell  Amy!  He  sunk 
down  in  the  corner  of  his  seat,  and  pulled  his 
hat  over  his  eyes,  in  pretence  of  a  nap;  then, 
suddenly,  sat  bolt  upright.  The  fact  was, 
Thomas  Fleming  had  no  experience  in  disgrace, 
and  did  not  know  how  to  conduct  himself. 
When  the  door  banged  open  at  his  station,  he 
swung  off  onto  the  rainy  platform  and  plodded 
slowly  up  the  lane  to  his  own  house.  It  was  a 
moral  effort  to  go  home,  but  it  was  almost  a 
physical  effort,  too;  it  seemed  to  him  as  though 
his  very  feet  hung  back!  As  the  gate  closed 
behind  him,  he  saw  an  instant  crack  of  light  at 
the  front  door;  and  when  his  foot  touched  the 
in 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

lowest  step  of  the  porch,  the  door  opened  wide, 
and  Amy  stood  there — it  was  rarely  Jane  who 
let  him  in,  or  even  his  own  latch-key. 

"  Go  right  into  the  house !  You'll  take  cold, ' ' 
he  commanded. 

But  she  drew  him  inside  with  eager  wel- 
come. "Why,  how  did  you  manage  to  get 
the  five  o'clock?  I  heard  the  gate  shut,  and 
could  hardly  believe  my  ears!  Oh,  your  coat  is 
damp;  has  it  begun  to  rain?  Hurry!  take  it 
off.  Then  come  into  the  library  and  get  warm. ' ' 
She  possessed  herself  of  one  of  his  hands,  so 
that  he  had  to  dive  into  his  bag  as  best  he  could 
with  the  other,  to  fish  out  her  box  of  candy. 
She  took  it,  smiling,  with  gay  pretence  of 
scolding,  and  then  checked  herself.  "You 
look  tired,  Tom.  When  you've  had  your 
dinner  (we  have  a  good  dinner  to-night;  I  wish 
you  had  brought  some  man  home  with  you!) 
you'll  feel  better." 

He  dropped  down  into  his  chair  by  the  fire 
in  silence,  frowning  slightly,  and  drawing  im- 
patiently away  from  her.  Thomas  Fleming 
did  not  always  like  to  be  fussed  over;  there 
were  times  when,  perhaps,  he  endured  it 
with  a  mildly  obvious  patience.  Every  ten- 
der woman  knows  this  patience  of  a  good  and 

112 


MANY   WATERS 

bored  man.  Amy  Fleming  knew  it,  and  smiled 
to  herself,  quite  unoffended.  Something  had 
bothered  him?  Well,  he  should  not  be  talked 
to!  But  she  looked  at  him  once  or  twice.  In 
her  soft  gray  dress,  with  her  gray  eyes,  and  the 
sweet  color  in  her  cheeks,  she  brooded  over  him 
like  a  dove.  At  dinner  his  silence  continued. 
Amy,  being  wise  beyond  her  sex,  fell  into  a 
silence  of  her  own — the  blessed,  comprehend- 
ing silence  of  love.  When  they  came  back 
from  the  dining-room  to  the  library  fireside, 
she  let  him  smoke  uninterruptedly,  while  she 
sewed.  Sometimes  her  eyes  rested  on  him, 
quietly  content  with  his  mere  presence.  But 
she  asked  no  question.  Suddenly,  with  a  half- 
embarrassed  cough,  he  said: 

"Ah  .  .  .Amy—" 

"Yes?  Tell  me;  I  knew  you  hadn't  had  a 
good  day." 

When  he  had  told  her,  she  sat  dumb  before 
him.  Her  face  was  white,  and  her  eyes  terror- 
stricken.  But  that  was  only  for  the  first  mo- 
ment. Almost  instantly  there  was  the  relief 
of  anger.  She  stood  up,  her  delicate  face  red, 
her  voice  strained. 

"To  accuse  you!     You!" 
"3 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

It  was  just  what  Bates  had  said.  The  first 
thought  everywhere  would  be  of  the  absurdity 
of  such  a  charge  against  Thomas  Fleming. 

"It's  blackmail,"  Amy  said,  trembling  very 
much. 

"Of  course  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in 
throwing  them  down,"  he  said.  "They  bring 
their  case,  really,  on  Smith's  old  check  to  me 
for  $17,400." 

"I  don't  understand,"  Amy  said.  It  had 
always  been  a  joke  between  them  that  Amy 
did  not  know  anything  about  business,  so  she 
tried  to  smile  when  she  asked  him  to  explain. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  impatiently,  "it's  simple 
enough.  L.  H.  Smith  owed  me  $3000 — a  per- 
sonal matter.  I  once  sold  him  some  stock ;  he 
gave  me  his  note;  had  to  renew  two  or  three 
times;  thing  sort  of  hung  fire.  You  wouldn't 
understand  it,  Amy.  But  when  he  bought  this 
Hammond  property  for  $14,400,  he  made  out 
the  check  for  $17,400  —  he'd  had  a  windfall, 
so  he  could  pay  me  what  he  owed  me.  See? 
I  got  my  money.  Understand?" 

"  Perfectly,"  she  said.  "  What  a  rascal  Ham- 
mond is!" 

"Oh,  well,  I  suppose  this  time  he  really 
thinks  he  has  a  case;  though  on  general  prin- 
114 


'SHE    CAME    AND    KNELT    DOWN     BESIDE    HIM 


MANY   WATERS 

ciples  I  believe  he's  equal  to  blackmail!  But 
he  has  succeeded  in  getting  from  the  Smith 
heirs  that  old  check  for  the  total  amount,  and  I 
suppose  he  thinks  he  has  me.  He'll  find  him- 
self mistaken.  But  it's  a  nasty  business,"  he 
ended,  moodily;  "there  will  always  be  people 
who  will  think — " 

"What  do  we  care  what  such  people  think?" 
she  said,  passionately. 

Her  husband  was  silent.  Amy's  knees  were 
shaking  under  her.  "  Oh,  I  could  kill  that  man, 
I  could  kill  him!" 

Well  as  he  knew  her,  he  looked  at  her  with 
astonishment — this  mild  creature  to  speak  with 
such  deadly,  vindictive  passion !  She  came  and 
knelt  down  beside  him ;  he  felt  her  heart  pound- 
ing in  her  side. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  brokenly,  "I  know—" 

"You  know  what?" 

She  spoke  very  softly.  "I  know  how  they 
felt;  those  women,  'looking  on,  afar  off/" 

"  '  Looking  on  '  ?"  he  said,  vaguely.  And 
Amy,  her  face  still  hidden  on  his  breast,  said 
in  a  whisper : 

"  It  must  have  been  easier  for — for  Him,  on 
the  cross,  than  for  them  to  see  Him  there." 

He  moved  abruptly  in  his  chair;  then,  with 
"5 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

faint  impatience,  said  she  mustn't  talk  that 
way.  "It's  foolish!"  he  said,  irritably.  She 
kissed  him,  silently,  and  went  back  to  her  seat 
by  the  fire. 

"I'll  get  out  of  it  all  right,"  Fleming  said; 
"Bates  says  so.  It's  annoying"  —  he  found 
himself  falling  back  on  Bates's  word  —  "but 
there's  nothing  to  it.  You  mustn't  worry. 
Bates  says  Hammond  is  crazy  to  undertake 
it;  Smith  being  dead,  and — "  Then  he  stopped. 

"  I  don't  worry — in  the  sense  of  being  afraid 
that — "  she  could  not  even  put  into  words 
the  fear  that  she  did  not  have.  "  But  to  have 
your  name  mixed  up  with  anything  dishonor- 
able— even  though  it  will  come  out  clear  and 
shining  as  heaven! — it  makes  me  sort  of — it 
kills  me!"  she  said,  panting. 

He  made  no  answer.  The  fatigue  of  the 
day  was  showing  in  his  face — a  heavy,  hand- 
some face,  with  a  somewhat  hard  mouth.  His 
wife,  controlling  herself  with  an  effort  that 
drove  the  color  out  of  her  face,  said,  quietly : 

"  Don't  let's  talk  about  it,  dearest,  any  more 
to-night.  It's  only  on  the  surface;  it  isn't  a 
real  trouble." 

He  nodded  gratefully,  and  they  did  not  speak 
of  it  again. 

116 


MANY   WATERS 

But  that  night,  Amy  Fleming,  lying  motion- 
less in  her  bed,  stared  into  the  darkness  until 
the  glimmering  oblong  of  the  window  told  her 
that  dawn  had  come. 


II 


"TROUBLE  shows  us  our  friends,"  Amy  said, 
smiling.  And  indeed  it  did  in  the  Flemings' 
case.  When  the  news  of  the  indictment  of 
Thomas  Fleming  fell  upon  his  community,  there 
was  a  moment  of  stunned  astonishment;  then 
of  protest  and  disbelief. 

"Hammond  is  up  against  it,"  men  said  to 
one  another.  "Fleming?  What  nonsense!" 

The  first  day  or  two,  while  it  was  still  a  nine- 
days'  wonder,  public  confidence  was  almost  an 
ovation.  The  small  house  behind  the  trim 
hedges  was  crowded  with  Amy's  women  friends, 
coming  and  going,  and  quoting  (after  the  fashion 
of  women  friends)  what  their  respective  hus- 
bands said: 

"  Of  course,  Mr.  Hammond  has  no  case,  Amy, 
darling !  My  Tom  —  or  Dick  or  Harry  —  says 
so." 

Amy  did  not  need  such  assurances.  She 
knew  her  husband!  So  she  held  her  head 
117 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

proudly  and  with  certainty.  Not  certainty  of 
the  outcome  of  the  trial — because,  secretly,  she 
had  the  unreasoning  terror  of  most  women  of 
sheltered  lives  for  the  very  word  law;  it  meant 
power — wicked  power,  even! — the  opportunity 
of  evil  to  get  the  better  of  goodness.  But  her 
pride  and  confidence  were  for  Thomas  Flem- 
ing's honor  and  goodness  and  courage.  If  they 
put  him  in  jail,  if  they  killed  him  even!  it  could 
make  no  difference  in  her  certainty,  she  told 
herself.  She  was  a  little  cold  when  these  tender 
women  friends  tried  to  reassure  her,  quoting  the 
opinions  of  their  menfolk ;  she  did  not  want,  by 
eager  agreement,  to  imply  that  she  needed 
reassurance.  She  said,  with  gentle  dignity, 
that  she  was  sorry  Mr.  Hammond  was  so — 
foolish.  Tom  had  been  trustee  of  the  Ham- 
mond estate  for  nearly  twenty  years,  and  he 
had  given  time  and  service — "service,"  she 
said,  the  coloring  rising  faintly  in  her  face, 
"that  mere  money  could  not  pay  for."  And 
to  have  the  Hammonds  turn  upon  him  now! 
"Though,  of  course,  it  is  only  Mr.  Hammond," 
Amy  corrected  herself,  carefully  just ;  "  the  rest 
of  the  family  are  nice  people.  His  mother  was 
such  an  honorable  woman.  And  his  wife — I 
am  sorry  for  his  wife."  Amy  thought  a  great 
118 


MANY   WATERS 

deal  about  this  wife.  "She  must  know  what 
he  is,  poor  soul!"  she  said  to  herself.  And, 
knowing,  she  could  not  respect  him.  And  with- 
out respect,  love  must  have  crumbled  away. 
She  said  something  like  this  to  her  most  in- 
timate friend,  almost  in  a  whisper,  because  ex- 
pression was  not  easy  to  Amy.  "When  Mrs. 
Hammond  realizes  that  he  is  a  blackmailer, 
what  will  she  do!" 

"Poor  thing!"  said  the  other  woman;  "but, 
Amy,  I  suppose  she  is  fond  of  him?  He  has 
been  a  good  husband,  they  say." 

"A  good  husband?  How  do  you  mean? 
Kind?  A  'good  provider'?"  Amy  said,  with 
a  droop  of  her  lip. 

"Well,  my  dear,  at  least  the  man  has  been 
faithful  to  her;  among  all  the  horrid  things 
that  have  been  said  about  him,  nobody  has 
said — that." 

"They  had  better  have  said  'that'!"  Amy 
said.  "Oh,  Helen,  faithful  to  her  with  his 
body;  but  what  about  his  mind?  Don't  you 
suppose  a  good  woman  could  forgive  the  poor, 
sinful  body?  But  the  mind,  the  sinful  mind! 
It  is  so  much  worse." 

Her  friend  looked  doubtful.  "I  suppose  it 
is,"  she  said;  "but  I  think  most  wives  could 
119 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

forgive  the  sinful  mind  more  easily  than — 
other  things.  And  she  is  fond  of  him,"  she 
repeated. 

"Fond  of  him!  when  she  can't  respect  him? 
Oh,  no,  no!" 

"Perhaps  she  doesn't  know  how  bad  he  is," 
the  other  said,  thoughtfully. 

"  What!"  said  Amy,  "  when  she  has  lived  with 
him  for  fifteen  years  ?  Of  course  she  knows  him. 
And  I  truly  pity  her,"  she  ended,  simply. 

So  in  spite  of  her  deep  resentment  at  Ham- 
mond, Amy  felt  something  like  tenderness  for 
Hammond's  wife — losing  both  respect  and  love, 
poor  soul! 

As  the  weeks  passed  before  the  day  set  for 
the  trial,  Amy  grew  perceptibly  thinner  and 
whiter.  For  beneath  all  her  certainties  the 
fear  of  the  law  remained.  She  brooded  over 
instances  of  goodness  suspected,  of  innocent 
men  condemned,  of  the  blunders  and  mistakes 
of  justice.  It  was  not  until  three  or  four  days 
before  the  trial  that  Bates  realized  what  even 
Thomas  Fleming  had  not  understood — that  she 
was  consumed  with  fear:  fear  of  prison  walls, 
of  unmerited  disgrace,  of  her  house  left  unto 
her  desolate.  When  the  lawyer  penetrated  the 
tense  cheerfulness  with  which  she  held  herself 
120 


MANY    WATERS 

in  Tom's  presence,  and  saw  the  fright  below, 
he  roared  with  laughter;  which,  though  ill- 
mannered,  was  the  best  thing  he  could  have 
done. 

"You  think  I'm  a  fool?"  she  said,  with  a 
quivering  smile. 

"My  dear  lady,  it  would  not  be  polite  for 
me  to  use  such  a  word ;  but  certainly  you — well, 
you  are  mistaken." 

"  Oh,  say  I  am  a  fool,"  she  pleaded ;  "  I  would 
like  to  think  I  was  a  fool !  But,  Mr.  Bates,  the 
law  can  be  made  to  do  such  dreadful  things. 
Innocent  people  have  been  put  into  jail;  oh, 
you  know  they  have,"  she  said,  her  face  trem- 
bling; "and  at  night  I  lie  awake  and  think — " 
He  saw  her  hands  grip  each  other  to  keep 
steady. 

"Now  let  me  explain  it  to  you,"  he  said, 
kindly,  "and  then  you  won't  be  frightened; 
why,  you'll  be  so  sure  you'll  send  out  invita- 
tions for  a  dinner-party  on  the  igth,  so  we 
can  celebrate!  And  mind  you  have  plenty  of 
champagne." 

Then,  very  explicitly,  he  laid  before  her  the 

grounds  of  his  confidence.     Hammond,  to  start 

with,  was  a  fool.     "  He  always  has  been  a  cheap 

fellow — a  sort  of  smart  Aleck,  you  know;  but 

121 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

this  time  he's  just  a  fool."  He  had  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  a  shyster  firm,  who  were  milking 
him — "if  you'll  forgive  the  slang." 

"Oh,  go  on,  go  on!"  she  entreated. 

Hammond,  being  a  fool,  and  having  this 
vague  idea  about  the  price  paid  by  Smith  for 
the  land,  and  having  secured  the  old  check  to 
prove  (as  he  thinks)  that  such  a  price  was  paid, 
falls  into  the  hands  of  these  sharks.  "They 
know  there  is  nothing  to  it,  but  they  think  they 
can  pull  out  a  plum  somehow,"  said  Mr.  Bates. 
Then,  carefully,  he  told  her  the  story  point  by 
point.  Briefly,  it  was  that  while  there  was 
no  question  that  $17,400  had  been  paid  to 
Thomas  Fleming,  Hammond  could  not  dis- 
prove Fleming's  defence  that  only  $14,400  of  it 
was  to  go  to  the  trust,  and  that  the  remaining 
$3000  was  in  payment  of  Smith's  debt  to  him. 
"See?"  said  Bates,  kindly.  As  he  spoke,  the 
drawn  look  in  her  face  lessened,  and  she  drew 
one  or  two  long  breaths;  and  then,  suddenly, 
she  put  her  hands  over  her  eyes,  and  he  knew 
she  wept.  This  sobered  the  rather  voluble 
man.  He  protested,  with  friendly  vociferation, 
that  she  must  promise  him  not  to  give  the  mat- 
ter another  thought.  And  she,  still  trembling 
a  little,  looked  up,  smiling,  and  promised. 
122 


MANY   WATERS 

And,  such  being  her  temperament,  she  kept 
her  promise.  Perhaps  it  was  the  rebound  from 
having  gone  down  to  the  depths  of  fear;  but 
certainly  there  was  almost  bravado  in  the  re- 
action. She  made  up  her  mind  to  have  the 
dinner-party !  Tom  would  come  home,  cleared ; 
crowned  with  the  vindication  of  his  own  in- 
tegrity ;  and  he  would  find  love  and  friendship 
and  respect  ready  to  exult  with  him.  Tom, 
however,  objected  to  her  project. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  said;  "it's  perfectly  safe 
as  far  as  the  verdict  goes;  but —  He  stopped 
and  frowned.  It  was  evident  that  the  plan  did 
not  please  him.  But  for  once  Amy  did  not  con- 
sult his  pleasure.  She  had  her  own  views;  and 
she  did  actually  invite  a  party  of  old  friends 
to  dine  with  them  on  the  evening  when  it  was 
expected  that  the  verdict  would  be  given. 

Ill 

AMY,  in  her  dove-colored  dress,  entered  the 
court  -  room  with  her  husband.  During  the 
trial,  very  quietly,  and  with  a  beautiful  seren- 
ity, she  kept  her  place  at  his  side.  If  the  pro- 
ceedings troubled  her,  there  was  no  indication 
of  it.  She  looked  a  little  tired,  and  once  or 

9  123 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

twice  a  little  amused.  Sometimes  she  smiled  at 
Thomas  Fleming,  and  sometimes  exchanged  a 
word  or  two  with  Mr.  Bates.  But  for  the  most 
part  she  was  silent;  and  her  repose  was  a  spot 
of  refreshment  and  beauty  in  the  dingy  court- 
room. Bates  looked  at  her  occasionally,  with 
rather  jovial  encouragement ;  but  she  displayed 
no  need  of  encouragement,  and  returned  his 
smile  cheerfully.  Once  he  leaned  over  and  said : 
"  You  make  me  think  of  a  poem  I  read  some- 
where; now,  what  was  the  name  of  it?  I  can 
only  remember  two  lines: 

'"In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance, 
I  have  not  winced  or  cried  aloud!' 

That's  as  far  as  I  can  go;  but  that's  what  you 
make  me  think  of." 

She  turned,  smiling,  and  finished  the  verse. 
"It's  Henley's  'I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul,": 
she  said.  "I  have  it  somewhere;  I  copied  it 
once,  because  I  cared  so  much  for  it.  I'll  read 
it  to  you  to-night,  after  dinner." 

"Do,"  Bates  said,  heartily,  and  turned  away 
to  listen  to  Fleming,  who  was  on  the  stand. 
Fleming's  evidence  was  as  straightforward  as 
the  man  himself.  Yes,  Smith  (now  deceased) 
had  paid  him,  in  March,  1887,  the  sum  of 
124 


MANY   WATERS 

$17,400.  Of  this,  $3000  was  on  a  personal 
account;  $14,400  was  for  a  parcel  of  land  be- 
longing to  the  Hammond  estate.  The  check 
was  made  to  his  order ;  he  deposited  it  in  his  own 
bank  account,  and  immediately  drew  against  it 
a  check  for  $14,400  to  the  order  of  the  trust. 
Then  followed  a  very  clear  and  definite  state- 
ment of  that  money  Smith  owed  him;  a  debt 
which  he  was  unable  to  corroborate  by  his  books, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  his  books  had  been 
burned  in  the  great  fire  of  that  year.  Over 
and  over,  back  and  forth,  round  and  round,  the 
prosecution  went,  gaining  not  an  inch. 

Indeed,  the  end  was  obvious  from  the  be- 
ginning. To  assert  that  Thomas  Fleming  was 
an  honest  man  was,  so  Bates  told  the  jury,  to 
utter  a  commonplace.  He  was  so  cheerful 
and  kindly  in  his  reference  to  the  unfortunate 
Mr.  Hammond  that  the  jury  grinned.  The 
verdict,  Bates  declared,  was  a  foregone  con- 
clusion. And  so,  in  fact,  it  was,  being  rendered 
fifteen  minutes  after  the  jury  had  been  charged. 

"And  now,"  said  the  good  Bates,  shaking 
hands  with  his  client,  "let's  go  and  get  some- 
thing to  eat.  Come,  Mrs.  Fleming,  you'll  go 
with  us?  You  look  like  an  army  with  ban- 
ners!" 

125 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

But  Amy,  with  proud  eyes,  said  no ;  she  must 
go  home.  "You  will  come  out  with  Tom  this 
evening?"  she  said.  "Dinner  is  at  half-past 
seven;  you  can  dress  at  our  house;  and,  of 
course,  you  must  stay  all  night."  Bates 
promised,  and  Fleming  silently  squeezed  his 
wife's  hand.  Amy's  heart  was  beating  so  that 
her  words  were  a  little  breathless,  but  her  eyes 
spoke  to  him. 

She  did  not  want  to  lunch  with  the  two  men ; 
she  had  it  in  mind  to  go  into  a  church  which  was 
near  the  court-house,  and  there,  alone,  in  the 
silence  and  sacred  dusk,  return  thanks  upon  her 
knees.  Any  deep  human  experience  gives  the 
soul  a  chance  to  see  God;  and  when  Amy  came 
out  from  the  quiet  church  into  the  roar  of  the 
street,  her  face  shone  like  the  face  of  one  who 
has  touched  the  garment  hem  of  the  Eternal. .  .  . 

The  joyous  and  beautiful  day  passed;  the 
afternoon  was  gay  with  congratulations;  but 
the  succession  of  friendly  calls  was  fatiguing, 
and  at  half -past  five  she  said,  courageously: 
"Now,  dear  friends,  I'll  have  to  leave  you! 
It's  delightful  to  hear  all  these  nice  things  about 
Tom,  but  I  must  go  and  lie  down,  or  I  shall  go 
to  sleep  at  dinner."  So  there  was  more  hand- 
shaking and  gayety,  and  then,  at  last,  she  had 
126 


MANY   WATERS 

the  house  to  herself.  She  reflected  that  it 
would  be  well  to  have  a  little  nap,  so  that  she 
might  be  bright  and  rested  for  the  jubilant  even- 
ing. Oh,  that  poem  Mr.  Bates  wanted  to  see! 
She  had  forgotten  all  about  it ;  she  must  find  it 
before  she  went  up-stairs.  But  she  must  first 
look  into  the  dining-room  to  be  sure  about  the 
candles  and  flowers  and  wine-glasses — three  kinds 
of  wine  to-night!  Generally  Tom  had  just  his 
glass  of  sherry ;  but  to-night — !  The  economical 
Amy  would  have  broached  the  tun  of  malmsey 
if  she  had  been  able  to  secure  it.  The  dinner, 
she  knew,  would  be  good.  She  had  picked  out 
the  partridges  herself,  knowing  well,  under  her 
calm  exterior,  that  her  market-man,  looking  at 
her  with  sidewise,  curious  eyes,  was  thinking 
to  himself:  "My!  and  her  husband  to  be  tried 
fora  state -prison  offence!"  The  partridges 
were  superb ;  and  the  salmon  —  Amy's  eyes 
sparkled  with  joy  at  the  thought  of  such  ex- 
travagance— salmon  in  February — the  salmon 
was  perfect;  and  the  salad,  the  ices,  the  coffee 
— well,  they  would  be  worthy  of  the  occasion! 
The  dining-room  was  satisfactory,  with  its  ten 
friendly  chairs  drawn  up  about  the  sparkling 
table.  And  her  best  dress  was  up-stairs  spread 
out  on  the  bed,  with  her  slippers  and  gloves; 
127 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

her  flowers — Tom  would  bring  her  her  flowers! 
She  thought  to  herself  that  she  would  wear 
them,  and  then  put  them  away  with  her  wed- 
ding bouquet,  that  had  been  lying  dry  and 
fragrant  for  all  these  years  with  her  wedding 
dress  and  veil.  Sighing  with  the  joy  of  it  all, 
she  climbed  wearily  half-way  up-stairs;  then 
remembered  Mr.  Bates's  poem  again,  and  went 
back  to  the  library,  with  an  uneasy  look  at  the 
hall  clock.  She  would  not  get  much  of  a  nap! 
And  the  chances  of  the  nap  lessened  still  more, 
because  she  could  not  at  once  find  her  Com- 
monplace Book,  in  which  she  had  copied  the 
poem.  Taking  out  one  book  after  another,  she 
shook  her  head  and  looked  at  her  hands — these 
shelves  were  very  dusty;  that  told  a  house- 
keeping story  that  was  disgraceful,  she  said 
to  herself,  gayly.  Well,  she  would  look  after 
Jane,  now  that  she  could  think  and  breathe 
again!  So,  poking  about,  pulling  out  one 
flexible,  leather-covered  volume  after  another, 
her  fate  fell  upon  her.  .  .  . 

The  book  looked  like  her  own  Commonplace 
Book;  Tom  had  more  than  once  given  her 
blank-books  just  like  his  own  —  bound  in  red 
morocco,  with  mottled  edges,  and  stamped, 
"Diary,  18 — ."  There  was  a  whole  row  of 
128 


MANY   WATERS 

these  books  on  one  of  the  bottom  shelves  of  the 
bookcase  that  ran  round  three  sides  of  the  room, 
and  she  had  been  looking  at  them,  one  by  one, 
hurriedly,  for  she  knew  she  needed  that  rest 
up-stairs  before  the  company  came.  She  pulled 
the  books  out  impatiently,  fluttering  the  leaves 
over,  and  putting  them  back.  One  or  two 
were  her  own  note -books:  but  the  rest  were 
Tom's  memoranda — accounts,  notes,  etc.,  etc., 
back  to —  "Why,  dear  me!"  said  Amy  to  her- 
self, "they  go  back  to  before  we  were  mar- 
ried!" 

There  was  one  date  that  caught  her  eye;  she 
had  heard  it  repeated  and  repeated  in  the  last 
few  weeks ;  she  had  heard  it  that  very  morn- 
ing in  court,  when  Thomas  Fleming  had  said: 
"In  March,  1887,  L.  F.  Smith  paid  me  in  one 
check,  $17,400;  $14,400  for  a  piece  of  land  be- 
longing to  the  Hammond  estate,  and  $3000 
which  he  owed  my  personal  account." 

The  flexible,  red-covered  diary  marked  1887 
drew  her  hand  with  the  fascination  which  comes 
with  remembered  pain.  Ah!  how  she  had  suf- 
fered every  time  that  date  fell  like  a  scalding 
drop  of  fear  upon  her  heart!  It  is  not  true  of 
spiritual  pain  that  one  remembereth  no  more 
the  anguish  for  joy  that  a  blessing  has  been  born 
129 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

into  the  soul!  She  shivered  as  she  opened  the 
book.  It  occurred  to  her,  with  vague  surprise, 
that  this  book  would  probably  have  settled  the 
whole  matter,  if  Tom  had  only  remembered  it. 
He  had  shown  in  court  that  records  of  that  year 
had  been  among  certain  office  books  burned  in 
the  great  March  fire,  when  the  building  in 
which  he  had  his  office  had  been  destroyed. 
Yes,  this  book  might  have  cleared  the  whole 
matter  up,  easily  and  quickly,  for,  as  she  saw 
at  a  glance,  here  were  entries  about  the  Ham- 
mond Trust.  She  forgot  her  fatigue,  and  the 
nap  she  ought  to  have;  she  forgot  the  poem 
altogether;  she  sat  down  on  the  floor,  running 
the  pages  over  eagerly.  It  occurred  to  her, 
as  a  climax  of  the  successful  day,  that  she 
would  bring  this  book  out  at  dinner  (if  she 
could  only  find  something  about  the  $14,400!), 
and  show  it  as  her  final  triumph.  Then  her 
eyes  fell  on  the  figures  $17,400. 

"Received  from  L.  H.  Smith,  to-day,  $17,400 
for  Hammond  property,  in  Linden  Hill."  Then 
the  comment:  "A  whacking  good  price.  I 
hardly  expected  to  get  so  much."  The  signifi- 
cance of  this  brief  statement  did  not  penetrate 
her  joy.  She  began  eagerly  to  look  again  for 
the  other  figures — and  then  turned  back,  per- 
130 


MANY   WATERS 

plexed.  $17,400  for  the  Hammond  property? 
Suddenly  her  eye  caught  another  familiar  sum 
—$3000.  Ah,  now  she  would  find  it!  Yes, 
verily,  so  she  did.  .  .  .  "Borrowed  $3000  from 
Hammond  Estate  to  pay  back  money  borrowed 
from  Ropes  Estate." 

Suddenly  it  seemed  to  this  poor  woman,  sit- 
ting on  the  floor  in  the  dark  corner  of  the 
library,  her  fingers  dusty,  her  whole  slender 
body  tingling  with  fatigue — it  seemed  as  if 
something  fell,  shuddering,  down  and  down 
and  down,  in  her  breast.  Strangely  enough, 
this  physical  recognition  informed  her  soul. 
She  heard  herself  speak,  as  one  falling  into  the 
unconsciousness  of  an  anesthetic  hears,  with 
vague  astonishment,  words  faltering  unbidden 
from  the  lips.  "  No — no — no,"  came  the  body's 
frightened  denial. 

Then,  in  silence,  the  Soul:  "He  did  it.  He 
did  it." 

It  was  characteristic  of  Amy  that  she  sought 
no  loophole  of  escape.  It  never  occurred  to  her 
that  there  could  be  an  explanation.  There 
were  the  figures ;  and  the  figures  meant  the  facts. 
"A  certain  man  named  Ananias"  (so,  suddenly, 
the  words  ran  in  her  mind)  "  sold  a  possession  . . . 
and  kept  back  part  of  the  price" 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

Out  in  the  hall  the  half -hour  struck,  muffled 
and  mellow.  Then  silence. 

"God,  if  he  did  it,  I  can't  live — can't  live. 
God  r 

Then  again  the  body's  futile  denial:  "No — 
no — no." 

Suddenly  the  happenings  of  the  day  seemed 
to  blur  and  run  together,  and  there  was  a  mo- 
ment, not  of  unconsciousness,  but  of  profound 
indifference.  Her  capacity  for  feeling  snapped. 
When  she  tried  to  rise,  her  whole  being  was  sick ; 
so  sick  that  again  the  soul  forgot  or  did  not 
understand,  and  heard,  with  dull  curiosity,  the 
body  saying:  "No  —  no."  She  steadied  her- 
self by  holding  onto  the  book-shelves ;  and  then, 
somehow,  she  got  up-stairs.  It  was  the  sight 
of  the  soft  gray  dress,  with  its  pretty  laces, 
that  stung  her  awake.  That  dress — was  it  hers  ? 
Was  she  to  put  it  on?  Was  she  to  go  and  sit 
at  the  head  of  that  shining  table  down  in  the 
dining-room  ? 

"But,  you  know,  I — can't"  she  said  aloud, 
her  voice  hoarse  and  falling. 

But  she  did. 

By  the  time  Fleming  and  his  counsel  came 
tramping  up  from  the  gate,  at  a  quarter-past 

132 


MANY   WATERS 

seven,  and  stopped,  hilariously,  to  kick  the  snow 
off  their  boots  before  entering  the  hall,  Amy 
Fleming  had  arisen  to  meet  the  summons  of 
life.  She  called  Jane  to  fasten  her  dress,  and 
when  the  woman,  startled  and  shocked  at  the 
shrunken  face,  cried  out: 

"Oh,  good  land!  what's  wrong  wi'  ye,  Mrs. 
Fleming?"  she  was  able  to  say,  quietly: 

"Jane,  when  Mr.  Fleming  comes  in,  tell  him 
I've  had  to  go  down  to  the  kitchen  to  see  about 
some  things.  And  say  I  put  his  dress-suit  out 
on  the  sofa  in  my  room.  Tell  him  the  studs  are 
in  his  shirt." 

Jane,  silenced,  went  back  to  the  kitchen. 
"Say,  Mary  Ann,"  she  said,  "look  a-here; 
there's  something  the  matter  up-stairs."  The 
presence  of  the  accommodating  waitress  checked 
further  confidences;  but,  indeed,  when  Amy 
Fleming,  ghastly,  in  her  pretty  dinner -dress, 
sought  refuge  in  the  kitchen  (the  one  spot 
where  her  husband  would  not  be  apt  to  pursue 
her),  and  stood  listening  to  the  voices  of  the 
two  men  going  up-stairs,  Mary  Ann  needed  no 
information  that  there  was  "something  the 
matter." 

"  She  looks  like  she  was  dead,"  the  frightened 
women  told  each  other. 
133 


R.  J.'S  MOTHER 

"Jane,"  her  mistress  said,  "  I  wish  you  would 
open  a  bottle  of  champagne — one  of  the  pints, 
not  one  of  the  big  bottles;  and  give  —  me  —  a 
glass."  Her  voice  was  faint.  Jane  obeyed  hur- 
riedly, and  as  the  cork  popped  one  man  up- 
stairs called  out  gayly  to  the  other:  "Hullo! 
has  it  begun  already?" 

Amy  drank  the  wine  and  handed  the  glass 
back  to  the  anxious  woman.  "I  was  feeling 
faint,  Jane.  I  am  all  right  now,  thank  you. 
Oh,  there's  the  door -bell!  I'll  go  into  the 
library."  And  when  the  two  rather  early 
comers  had  taken  off  their  wraps  and  made  their 
way  down-stairs  again,  they  found  their  hostess 
smiling  whitely  at  them  from  the  hearth-rug. 

"Oh,  Amy  dear!"  the  wife  said,  dismayed, 
"what  is  the  matter?"  And  the  husband  pro- 
tested in  a  friendly  way  that  he  was  afraid  Mrs. 
Fleming  was  tired  out.  "  Of  course  it  has  been 
a  wearing  weekf  or  you,  in  spite  of  its  triumph," 
he  said,  delicately. 

Then  Thomas  Fleming  and  his  lawyer  came 
down-stairs,  and  there  was  more  handshaking 
and  congratulations,  and  it  was  not  until  he 
looked  at  his  wife  at  dinner  that  Fleming  real- 
ly saw  her  face ;  its  haggard  pallor  struck  him 
dumb  in  the  midst  of  some  gay  story  he  was 
134 


MANY   WATERS 

telling  to  the  pretty  neighbor  on  his  right.  He 
had  been  dull,  just  at  first,  and  his  gayety  was 
a  little  forced,  but  after  his  first  glass  of  cham- 
pagne he  brightened  up  very  much,  and  had 
begun  to  tell  a  funny  story.  "And  so  the 
automobilist,"  he  was  saying — and  broke  off, 
staring  blankly  at  Amy.  "I'm  afraid  my  wife 
is  not  well,"  he  said,  anxiously.  But  the  pretty 
neighbor  reassured  him. 

"Oh,  it's  only  the  reaction,  Mr.  Fleming! 
Amy  has  been  perfectly  splendid;  but  now, 
naturally,  she  feels  the  reaction." 

Somehow  or  other,  with  its  gayety  and  good- 
fellowship,  that  dreadful  evening  passed.  When 
the  friendly  folk  streamed  out  into  the  starry 
winter  night,  there  was  some  anxious  comment. 

"How  badly  she  looked!" 

"My  dear,  can  you  wonder?  Think  what 
she's  been  through!" 

But  one  woman,  on  her  husband's  arm, 
murmured  a  question:  "You  don't  suppose  he 
could  have — done  anything?" 

"Twelve  good  men  and  true  have  said  he 
didn't;  your  remark  is  out  of  order." 

"But  tell  me,  honestly,  do  you  suppose  it  is 
possible  that — that — ?" 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  it,  Helen.  I 
135 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

would  bank  on  Tom  Fleming  as  soon  as  on  any 
man  I  know.  But  I  don't  know  any  man  (my- 
self included)  who  is  not  human.  So,  if  you 
ask  about  'possibilities' — but  no!  honestly,  as 
you  say,  I'm  sure  Fleming  is  all  right.  And 
his  wife  is  a  noble  woman.  I've  always  ad- 
mired Mrs.  Fleming." 

"She  is  the  best  woman  in  the  world!" 
Amy's  friend  said,  warmly.  But  in  her  own 
heart  she  was  thinking  that,  if  it  came  to 
possibilities,  she  knew  one  man  to  whom  wrong- 
doing was  impossible!  And,  happily,  she 
squeezed  his  arm  and  brushed  her  cold,  rosy 
cheek  against  his  shoulder. 

IV 

WHEN  Fleming  closed  the  door  upon  the  last 
lingering  guest,  he  turned  anxiously  to  his  wife. 
"Amy,  I  haven't  had  a  chance  to  speak  to  you. 
You  are  worn  out.  Bates,  look  at  her — she's 
worn  out!" 

Bates,  lounging  in  the  library  doorway,  agreed. 
"  Indeed  she  is.  Mrs.  Fleming,  you  ought  not  to 
have  attempted  a  dinner-party.  I  believe  it's 
all  my  fault,  because  I  suggested  it." 

"It's  your  fault,  because  you  got  me  off," 
136 


MANY   WATERS 

Fleming  said,  jocosely.  The  dulness  of  the 
first  part  of  the  evening  had  quite  disappeared ; 
he  was  rather  flushed  and  inclined  to  laugh 
buoyantly  at  everything;  but  his  face  was 
anxious  when  he  looked  at  his  wife.  "Amy, 
you  must  go  right  straight  to  bed." 

"I  am  going  now,"  she  said,  pulling  and 
straightening  the  fingers  of  her  long  gloves. 
"Good-night,  Mr.  Bates.  I  —  will  copy  that 
poem  for  you — sometime,"  she  ended,  faintly. 

Her  husband  put  his  arm  about  her  to  help 
her  up-stairs,  but  she  drew  away.  "No;  stay 
and  smoke  with  Mr.  Bates."  Then,  as  he  in- 
sisted on  going  up  with  her,  she  stopped  on  the 
first  landing  and  pushed  his  arm  away  sharply. 
"Please — don't!  My  head  aches.  Please — go 
away." 

Thomas  Fleming,  dumfounded,  could  not 
find  his  wits  for  a  reply  before  she  had  slipped 
away  from  him,  and  he  heard  the  door  of  their 
bedroom  close  behind  her.  He  stood  blankly 
upon  the  stairs  for  a  moment,  and  then  went 
back  to  Bates. 

"  I   never   knew  Amy   so   upset,"   he   said, 
stupidly.     And,   indeed,  there  are  few  things 
more  bewildering  than  sudden  irrational  irrita- 
tion in  a  sweet  and  reasonable  soul. 
137 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"It's  been  a  hard  week  for  her,"  Bates  ex- 
plained, easily.  But  Fleming  smoked  morosely ; 
he  was  plainly  relieved  when  his  guest  said  he 
thought  he  would  go  to  bed.  He  suggested,  in 
a  perfunctory  way,  a  last  visit  to  the  dining- 
room  for  a  drink  of  whiskey,  and,  when  this  was 
declined,  arose  with  alacrity  to  conduct  the 
sleepy  lawyer  to  the  spare-room  door. 

"We'll  take  the  eight-thirty  in  the  morning, 
Bates,"  he  said;  and  Bates,  yawning,  agreed. 

Fleming  went  softly  into  his  own  room,  and 
was  half  disappointed,  half  relieved,  to  find  his 
wife  lying  motionless,  with  closed  eyes.  "A 
good  night's  sleep  will  set  her  up,"  he  thought, 
tenderly.  For  himself,  he  stopped  in  the  proc- 
ess of  pulling  off  his  boots,  and,  shutting  his 
lips  hard  together,  stared  at  the  floor.  After 
a  while  he  drew  a  long  breath:  "Well,  thank 
the  Eternal  Powers,"  he  said,  and  pulled  off  his 
boots  softly — Amy  must  have  a  good  night's 
sleep.  Fleming  himself  had  a  good  night's 
sleep.  That  Amy's  eyes  opened  painfully  to 
the  dark  when  all  the  house  had  sunk  into 
silence,  of  course  he  did  not  know.  She  seemed 
to  be  sleeping  soundly  when  he  awoke  the  next 
morning;  and  again  he  crept  about,  not  daring 
even  to  kiss  her,  lest  she  might  be  disturbed. 
138 


MANY    WATERS 

Just  before  he  and  Bates  made  a  dash  for  the 
eight-thirty,  he  told  Jane  to  ask  Mrs.  Fleming 
to  call  him  up  on  the  telephone  when  she  came 
down-stairs,  so  he  might  know  how  she  was. 

As  for  Amy,  when  she  heard  the  front  door 
close  behind  the  two  hurrying  men,  she  got  up 
and  sat  wearily  on  the  side  of  the  bed. 

"Now  I've  got  time  to  think,"  she  said. 
There  was  a  certain  relief  in  the  consciousness 
of  silence  and  of  time.  She  could  think  all  day ; 
she  could  think  until  he  came  home,  at  half- 
past  six.  How  many  hours  ?  Ten !  Ten  hours 
in  which  to  take  up  a  new  life.  Ten  hours  in 
which  to  become  acquainted  with  her  husband. 

"I  have  never  known  him,"  she  said,  feebly, 
to  herself.  .  .  .  No  doubt  he  had  loved  her;  she 
was  not  questioning  that.  She  was  dully  in- 
different to  the  whole  matter  of  love.  The 
question  was,  What  was  she  going  to  do  ?  Yes ; 
now  she  must  think:  After  restitution  was 
made,  what  would  she  do  ?  How  were  they  to 
go  on  living?  Mere  restitution  (which  must 
be  made  on  Monday.  No,  Monday  was  a  holi- 
day; they  would  have  to  wait  until  Tuesday. 
Oh,  how  could  she  bear  the  delay?  Well,  on 
Tuesday,  then,  the  money  would  be  given  to 
Mr.  Hammond);  but  mere  restitution  would 

139 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

not  change  the  fact  of  what  he  was.  She 
dropped  back  against  her  pillows,  hiding  her 
face.  "/  never  knew  him."" 

Oh,  this  would  not  do!     She  must  think. 

Poor  soul!  She  had  no  thoughts  but  that 
one:  She  and  her  husband  were  strangers. 
Over  and  over  the  words  repeated  themselves, 
until  her  very  mind  was  sore.  But  she  did 
her  best,  and  the  habit  of  common-sense  was  a 
great  help.  She  had  some  coffee,  and  dressed 
and  went  down  to  the  library — recoiling,  in- 
voluntarily, at  the  sight  of  that  corner  where 
the  books  were  still  in  some  slight  disorder. 
She  even  called  Jane  and  bade  her  bring  her 
duster.  When  the  dusting  was  done,  she  told 
the  woman  that  she  would  not  see  any  one  all 
day.  "I  have  a  headache,"  she  explained; 
"don't  let  any  one  in."  And  when  Jane  left 
her  she  drew  her  little  chair  up  to  the  hearth. 
"Now  I'll  think,"  she  said.  But  her  eye 
caught  the  flash  of  sunlight  on  a  crystal  ball  on 
the  mantel-piece,  and  it  seemed  as  if  her  mind 
broke  into  a  glimmering  kaleidoscope:  those 
partridges  had  been  a  little  overcooked  last 
night ;  .  .  .  the  gilt  on  the  narrow,  old-fashioned 
mirror  over  the  mantel  was  tarnishing ;  .  .  .  the 
$3000  had  been  "borrowed"  from  one  trust 
140 


MANY   WATERS 

to  pay  another.  .  .  .  Borrowing  from  Peter  to 
pay  Paul.  .  .  .  How  clear  the  crystal  was.  .  .  . 
Two  thefts.  .  .  .  Jane  must  dust  those  shelves 
better.  .  .  .  Then  she  started  with  dismay — 
she  was  not  thinking!  Well:  restitution,  first 
of  all — on  Tuesday.  They  would  sell  a  bond 
and  take  some  money  out  of  the  bank.  But 
after  restitution  they  must  go  on  living.  She 
must  try  to  understand  him,  to  help  him  to  be 
good,  to  be  patient  with  him.  "But  I  don't 
know  him,"  came  over  and  over  the  dreadful 
refrain,  checked  by  the  instant  determination, 
"Oh,  I  must  think!" 

So  the  day  passed.  She  told  Jane  to  tele- 
phone her  husband  that  she  was  up  and  feeling 
better;  and  he  sent  back  some  anxious  message 
— she  must  rest,  she  must  not  overdo.  He 
could  not,  unfortunately,  come  out  on  an  early 
train,  as  he  had  hoped  to  do,  being  detained  by 
some  business  matters;  he  would  have  to  dine 
in  town,  but  he  would  come  out  on  the  eight- 
thirty.  She  grasped  at  the  delay  with  passion- 
ate relief — two  hours  more  to  think.  Then  it 
came  over  her  that  she  was  glad  not  to  see  him. 
How  extraordinary  not  to  be  glad  to  see  Tom! 
What  did  it  mean?  She  wondered,  vaguely, 
if  she  had  stopped  loving  him?  Not  that  it 
141 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

made  any  difference  whether  she  loved  him  or 
not.  Love  had  no  meaning  to  her.  "  Perhaps 
this  is  the  way  people  who  are  dead  feel  about 
us,"  she  thought.  Then  she  wondered  if  she 
hated  him,  this  stranger,  whom  she  "did  not 
know,"  this — thief?  No,  she  did  not  hate  him, 
either.  But  when  respect,  upon  which  love  is 
built,  is  wrenched  away,  what  happens  ?  There 
is  no  love,  of  course.  She  thought,  vaguely, 
that  she  had  pitied  Mrs.  Hammond.  And  yet 
she  herself  did  not  care,  apparently.  How 
strange  not  to  care!  Pulling  her  wedding-ring 
off,  slipping  it  on,  pulling  it  off  again,  she  said 
to  herself,  numbly,  that  she  did  not  understand 
why  she  did  not  care.  However,  she  could  not 
go  into  this  question  of  love  or  hate.  Neither 
mattered.  She  beat  her  poor  mind  back  to  its 
task  of  "thinking." 

The  long,  sunny  winter  afternoon  faded 
into  the  dusk;  a  gleam  of  sunset  broke  yel- 
low across  the  pleasant  room,  and,  catching 
with  a  glimmering  flash  on  the  crystal,  melted 
into  a  bloom  of  gray,  with  the  fire,  like  the 
spark  of  an  opal,  shifting  and  winking  on  the 
hearth. 

When  Fleming  came  hurriedly  up  the  garden 
path  to  his  own  door,  he  had  to  pull  out  his 
142 


MANY   WATERS 

latch-key  to  let  himself  into  the  house.  This 
slight  happening  made  him  frown;  so  she  was 
not  well  enough  to  come  down?  He  took  off 
his  coat  and  started  immediately  up-stairs, 
then  caught  sight  of  her  in  the  library,  stand- 
ing motionless,  her  back  to  the  door,  one  hand 
resting  on  the  mantel-piece,  the  other  drooping 
at  her  side  the  fingers  between  the  pages  of  a 
book.  He  came  in  quickly,  with  a  gayly  de- 
risive laugh. 

"You  didn't  hear  me!"  Then,  as  she  did 
not  turn,  he  sobered.  "  Amy,  what  is  it?  Why, 
Amy !  Is  there  anything  the  matter  ?  Is  any- 
thing wrong?"  His  face  was  keenly  disturbed, 
and  he  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder  to  make 
her  look  at  him ;  but  she  lifted  it  away,  gently, 
still  keeping  her  eyes  fastened  on  the  fire. 

"Yes.     There  is  something — wrong." 

"Amy!"  he  said,  now  thoroughly  alarmed, 
"  what  is  the  matter  ?  Tell  me." 

"I  will  tell  you.  Sit  down.  There:  at  the 
library  table.  I  will — show  you." 

He  sat  down,  blankly,  his  lower-lip  falling 
open  with  perplexity.  She  sighed  once,  and 
brushed  her  hand  over  her  eyes;  then  came 
quietly  away  from  the  hearth,  and,  going 
around  the  table,  stood  behind  him  and  laid 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

the  book  down  beside  him.  She  pressed  it 
open,  and  in  silence  ran  her  finger  down  the 
page. 

V 

THE  fire  sputtered  a  little;  then  everything 
was  still.  She  had  left  him,  and  had  gone  back 
to  the  hearth-rug,  and  stood  as  before,  one  hand 
on  the  mantel-piece,  the  other,  listless,  at  her 
side.  The  silence  was  dreadful. 

Then,  suddenly,  Thomas  Fleming  ripped  and 
tore  the  pages  out  of  the  book,  and  threw  them 
on  the  logs ;  the  quick  leap  of  the  flames  shone 
on  his  white  face  and  his  furious  eyes.  A  min- 
ute afterwards  he  spoke.  .  .  .  Under  that  storm 
of  outrageous  words  she  bent  and  shrank  a  lit- 
tle, silently.  Once  she  looked  at  him  with  a 
sort  of  curiosity.  So  this  was  her  husband? 
Then  she  looked  at  the  fire. 

When,  choking  with  anger,  he  paused,  she 
said,  briefly,  that  she  had  been  hunting  for  her 
Commonplace  Book,  down  on  that  lower  shelf, 
and  had  found — this. 

"What  the  devil  were  my  diaries  doing  on 
your  lower  shelf  ?  One  of  those  damned  women 
of  yours  poking — 

"  When  we  moved  they  were  put  there.  They 
144 


MANY    WATERS 

had  been  in  your  old  desk  in  the  other  house. 
They  were  locked  up  there.  I  suppose  you 
forgot  to  lock  them  up  here,"  she  ended, 
simply.  .  .  . 

That  next  hour  left  its  permanent  mark  on 
those  two  faces ;  agony  and  shame  were  cut  into 
the  wincing  flesh,  as  by  some  inexorable  die. 
At  first  Fleming  was  all  rage ;  then  rage  turned 
into  sullenness,  and  sullenness  to  explanation 
and  excuse.  But  as  he  calmed  down,  shame, 
an  old,  old  shame,  that  he  had  loathed  and  lived 
with  for  a  dozen  years,  a  shame  that,  except 
when  Amy  was  too  tenderly  proud  of  him,  he 
was  sometimes  able  for  days,  or  even  weeks,  to 
forget — this  old  shame  reared  its  deadly  head 
and  looked  out  of  his  abased  and  shifting  eyes. 
Yet  he  had  his  glib  excuses  and  explanations. 
Amy,  in  the  midst  of  them,  sat  down  in  her  lit- 
tle low  chair  by  the  fire.  She  did  not  speak. 
She  had  her  handkerchief  in  her  hand,  and  kept 
pulling  it  out  on  her  knee;  smoothing  it;  then 
folding  it ;  and  a  minute  later,  spreading  it  out 
again.  At  last,  after  a  labored  statement — how 
he  had  only  borrowed  it ;  how  it  had  been  at  a 
time  when  he  had  been  horribly  pressed;  how 
he  had  always  meant  to  return  it,  of  course; 
how,  in  fact,  he  had  returned  it  by  giving  an 
145 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

enormous  amount  of  work  for  which  he  had 
never  had  any  credit,  or  any  money,  either !  how, 
as  she  knew,  he  had  never  been  in  a  position 
to  pay  it  back  in  actual  cash — after  this  misera- 
ble and  futile  explanation  had  been  repeated  and 
repeated,  he  stopped  to  get  his  breath ;  and  then, 
still  pulling  the  hem  of  her  handkerchief  straight 
on  her  knee,  his  wife  said,  in  a  lifeless  voice : 

"  Need  we  talk  about  it  any  more  ?  On  Tues- 
day we  will  send  it  back.  (Monday  is  a  holi- 
day. You  can't  send  it  until  Tuesday.)  Then 
we  will  never  talk  about  it  any  more." 

"Send  what  back?" 

"The  money.    To  Mr.  Hammond." 

"Are  you  out  of  your  senses!" 

She  looked  up,  confusedly.  "  You  can't  send 
it  until  Tuesday,"  she  repeated,  mechanically. 

He  brought  his  fist  down  violently  on  the 
table.  "I  will  never  send  it  back!  You  are 
insane!  Why,  it  would  be  acknowledging — " 

"It  would  be  confession,"  she  agreed. 

"Well!  that  would  be  ruin." 

"Ruin?" 

"Why,  if  people  knew — "  he  began. 

"  It  is  ruin,  anyhow,"  she  said,  dully.  "  Don't 
you  see?  The  only  thing  left  is  restitution." 

"I  can't  make  what  you  call  'restitution' 
146 


MANY   WATERS 

without  ruin — absolute  ruin!  Do  you  realize 
what  it  would  mean  to  me,  in  this  town,  to 
have  it  known  that  I  —  borrowed  from  the 
trust  and — and  had  not  yet  returned  it?  On 
the  stand,  of  course,  I  had  to  protect  myself; 
and  that  would  be  —  against  me.  And  it 
would  be  known.  Hammond  would  never  let 
it  be  settled  privately!  He  couldn't  prose- 
cute me  on  the  old  charge;  but  I  suppose  he 
might  make  a  claim  of — of  perjury.  Anyhow, 
just  the  publicity  would  ruin  me.  And  he 
would  make  it  public.  Trust  Hammond!  Be- 
sides, I've  given  it  back  ten  times  over  in  un- 
paid-for  work  to  the  estate—  He  stopped 
abruptly.  Amy  had  fainted.  .  .  . 

Sunday  was  a  long  day  of  struggle.  The  im- 
mediate horror  of  violence  was  over;  he  was 
ashamed,  and  he  loved  her,  and  he  was  fright- 
ened. But  he  was  immovable.  His  hardness 
was  worse  than  his  violence. 

"  I  cannot  do  it,  Amy;  I  will  not  do  it.  The 
thing  is  done.  It's  over.  It's  settled.  I'm 
sorry;  I — regret  it;  nobody  regrets  it  as  much 
as  I  do.  But  I  will  not  destroy  myself,  and 
destroy  you  —  you,  too!  —  by  returning  it." 
Then,  sullenly:  "Anyway,  I  don't  owe  it,  mor- 
ally. I've  more  than  made  it  up  to  them." 
147 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

Monday,  the  holiday  (and  holidays  had  always 
been  such  joy  to  them — a  whole  day  at  home 
together !) — Monday,  they  struggled  to  the  death. 

It  was  in  the  afternoon  that  she  suddenly 
flagged.  She  had  been  kneeling  beside  him, 
entreating  him;  and  he  had  been  hard  and 
violent  and  childish  by  turns;  but  he  would 
not.  And  towards  dusk  there  came  a  dreadful 
pause.  Partly,  no  doubt,  it  was  because  she 
was  exhausted;  but  it  was  more  than  that. 
It  was  a  sudden  blasting  consciousness  that 
the  man  must  save  or  lose  his  own  soul.  If 
she  forced  him  to  make  restitution,  the  restitu- 
tion would  not  be  his,  but  hers.  If  she  pushed 
him  into  honesty,  he  would  still  be  dishonest. 
If  he  preferred  the  mire,  he  would  be  filthy  if 
plucked  out  against  his  will  and  set  on  clean 
ground.  A  prisoner  in  heaven,  is  in  hell!  No, 
he  must  save  himself.  She  could  not  save  him. 

She  drew  away  and  looked  at  him;  then 
she  covered  her  face  with  her  hands.  "I  am 
done,"  she  said,  faintly. 

The  suddenness  of  her  capitulation  left  him 
open-mouthed.  But  before  he  could  speak  she 
went  away  and  left  him.  He  heard  her  slip  the 
bolt  of  their  bedroom  door;  and  then  he  heard 
her  step  overhead.  After  that,  all  was  still. 
148 


MANY    WATERS 

The  afternoon  was  very  long;  once  he  went 
out,  and  walked  drearily  about  the  snowy  lanes, 
avoiding  passers-by  as  well  as  he  could.  But 
for  the  most  part  he  sat  in  the  library  and  tried 
to  read  or  smoke ;  but  he  forgot  to  turn  over  the 
pages,  and  he  had  to  keep  reaching  for  a  match 
to  relight  his  cigar.  He  said  to  himself  that 
his  life  was  over.  Amy  would  leave  him,  of 
course ;  she  had  said  as  much.  Well,  he  couldn't 
help  it.  Better  the  misery  of  a  broken  home 
than  public  shame  and  disgrace  and  ruin. 
And  he  had  made  'restitution/  as  she  called  it; 
he  had  made  it  many  times  over! 

It  was  late  at  night,  as  he  was  saying  some- 
thing like  this  to  himself  for  the  hundredth 
time,  that  his  wife  came  back  into  the  room. 
She  stood  up  in  the  old  place  on  the  hearth- 
rug. Very  gently  she  told  him  what  she  had 
to  say.  She  did  not  look  at  him;  her  eyes 
were  fixed  on  the  Japanese  crystal  resting  in 
its  jade  bowl  on  the  mantel-piece;  once  she 
took  it  up,  and  turned  it  over  and  over  in  the 
palm  of  her  hand,  looking  at  it  intently  as 
she  spoke.  But  probably  she  did  not  know 
that  she  saw  it. 

"I  have  thought  it  all  out,"  she  began  in  a 
low  voice;  "and  I  see  I  was  wrong — "  He 
149 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

started.  "I  was  wrong.  You  must  save  your 
own  soul.  I  can't  do  it  for  you.  Oh,  I  would! 
but  I  can't.  I  shall  not  ever  again  insist.  Yes, 
the  Kingdom  of  God  must  be  within  you.  I 
never  understood  that  before." 

"Amy,"  he  began,  but  she  checked  him. 

"Please! — I  am  not  through  yet.  I  shall 
pay  the  money  back,  somehow,  sometime. 
(Oh,  wait  —  wait;  don't  interrupt  me!)  Of 
course,  I  shall  not  betray  you.  My  paying 
it  shall  not  tell  the  truth,  because,  unless  the 
truth  is  from  you,  it  cannot  help  you.  It 
must  be  your  truth,  not  mine.  But  I  shall 
save  and  save  and  save,  and  pay  it  back — 
to  clear  my  own  soul.  For  I — I  have  lived 
on  that  $3000  too,"  she  said  with  a  sick  look. 
She  put  the  crystal  back  into  its  bowl.  "It 
will  take — a  long  time,"  she  said,  faintly. 

She  stopped,  trembling  from  the  effort  of 
so  many  calm  words.  Thomas  Fleming,  look- 
ing doggedly  at  the  floor,  said:  "I  suppose 
you'll  get  a  separation?" 

"Get  a  separation?"  she  glanced  at  him  for 
an  instant.  "  Why,  we  are  separated,"  she  said. 
"  We  can't  be  any  more  separated  than  we  are. 
I  suppose  we  have  never  been  together.  But 
I  won't  leave  you,  if  that  is  what  you  mean." 

150 


MANY   WATERS 

"You'll  stay  with  me?"  he  burst  out.  "I 
thought  you  despised  me!" 

"Why,  no,"  she  said,  slowly:  "I  don't  think 
I  despise  you.  I  don't  think  I  do.  But  of 
course —  She  looked  away,  helplessly.  "Of 
course,  I  have  no  respect  for  you." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I'm  sorry.  But  there's 
nothing  I  can  do  about  it." 

Amy  turned,  listlessly,  as  if  to  go  up-stairs 
again;  but  he  caught  at  her  dress. 

"You  really  mean  you  won't — leave  me?" 

"No,  I  won't  leave  you." 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  roughly,  "you  don't 
love  me;  but—  His  voice  faltered  into  a 
sort  of  question. 

She  turned  sharply  from  him,  hiding  her  face 
in  her  arm  and  moving  blindly,  with  one  hand 
stretched  out  to  feel  her  way,  towards  the 
door.  "Oh,"  she  said,  "oh— I'm  afraid— I—" 

And  at  that  he  broke.  .  .  .  Poor,  weak  love, 
poor  love  that  would  have  denied  itself,  but 
could  not  —  love  brought  him  to  his  knees, 
his  arms  around  her  waist,  his  head  against  her 
breast,  his  tears  on  her  hand. 

"Amy!  /  will  do  it.  I  will  give  it  back. 
Oh,  Amy,  Amy—" 


THE    HOUSE   OF    RIMMON 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 


TTHE  Reverend  Silas  Eaton  was  dead. 
1  It  was  May,  and  the  little  orchard  behind 
the  parsonage  was  like  a  white  and  perfumed 
cloak  flung  on  the  shoulder  of  a  bare  hill-side 
which  was,  all  the  rest  of  it,  rocky  pasture. 
On  sunny  slopes,  and  in  the  shelter  of  the 
stone  walls,  the  grass  was  vividly  green.  The 
apple  blossoms  were  just  beginning  to  fall;  in 
any  breath  of  wind  single  petals,  white,  stained 
outside  with  crimson,  came  down  in  flurries,  like 
gusts  of  warm  and  aromatic  snow.  There  was 
a  stir  of  life  everywhere.  In  the  parsonage  gar- 
den crown  imperials  had  pushed  their  strong 
stalks  through  the  damp  earth,  and  peonies 
were  reaching  up  long,  slender  arms,  each  with 
its  red,  curled  fist  of  leaves,  reluctant  to  ex- 
pand until  certain  of  the  sun.  The  ground  was 
spongy  beneath  the  foot,  and  there  were  small 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

springs  bubbling  up  under  every  winter-bleach- 
ed tuft  of  last  year's  grass.  The  air,  full  of  the 
scent  of  earth  and  growing  things,  was  warm 
and  sweet,  yet  with  an  edge  of  cold — the  sword 
of  frost  in  a  velvet  scabbard. 

Life — life:  and  in  the  upper  chamber  of  the 
parsonage  the  master  lay  dead. 

One  of  the  children  had  put  a  bunch  of  apple 
blossoms  on  the  table  at  the  head  of  the  bed. 
They  were  not  appropriate — the  soft,  rosy 
flowers  beside  the  hard  face  there  on  the  pillow; 
the  face  with  its  thatch  of  gray  hair  over  the 
narrow,  dome-like  brow,  seamed  and  cut  with 
wrinkles;  the  anxious,  melancholy  lips  set  in 
such  icy  and  eternal  indifference — the  face  of 
the  religious  egotist,  stamped  with  inexorable 
sincerity,  stern  and  cold  and  mean.  Not  a 
father's  face.  But  his  daughter  had  put  her 
handful  of  snowy  flowers  on  the  pine  table,  their 
little,  gnarled,  black  stems  thrust  tightly  down 
into  a  tumbler  of  water.  And  then  she  went 
tiptoeing  out  of  the  silent  room.  She  heard  her 
mother's  little,  light  voice  down-stairs  in  the 
parlor,  and  Elder  Barnes's  low,  respectful  mur- 
mur in  response.  They  were  "making  the  ar- 
rangements." Esther's  heart  stood  still,  not 
with  grief,  but  with  misery  at  the  strangeness 
156 


THE    HOUSE   OF    RIMMON 

of  it  all — her  silent,  meek,  obedient  mother 
saying  what  should  or  what  should  not  happen 
to — father ! 

"  And,  Mr.  Barnes,  if  it  will  not  be  a  trouble, 
will  you  find  out  for  me  how  much  it  would 
cost  to  send  a  telegram  to  my  brother  in  Mer- 
cer?" 

Esther,  leaning  over  the  balusters  in  the  up- 
per hall,  opened  her  lips  with  astonishment. 
A  telegram!  It  gave  the  child  a  sense  of  the 
dreadful  importance  of  this  May  day  as  nothing 
else  had  done.  The  thought  of  the  expense  of 
it  came  next,  sobering  that  curious  sense  of 
elation  which  is  part  of  bereavement. 

"Mother  oughtn't  to  do  that.  It  will  cost — 
oh,  it  will  cost  at  least  a  d.ollar!" 

This  fifteen-year-old  Esther  had  a  certain 
grim  practicality,  born  of  a  childhood  in  a 
minister's  family  on  five  hundred  dollars  a  year. 
A  dollar!  And  that  uncle  in  Mercer,  whom  she 
had  never  seen,  who  had  quarrelled  with  her 
mother  because  she  married  her  father,  and 
who  was  so  rich  and  powerful  (according  to  a 
newspaper  paragraph  she  had  once  read) — this 
uncle,  who  had  had  no  connection  with  them 
in  all  these  years — what  was  the  use  of  wasting 
a  dollar  in  telegraphing  him  ?  She  meant  to  say 
157 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

so;  and  yet,  when  she  went  down-stairs,  after 
Elder  Barnes  had  gone,  and  found  her  little 
mother  standing  at  the  window,  looking  blankly 
out  at  the  garden,  there  was  something  in  the 
mild,  faded  face  that  kept  the  girl  silent.  She 
came  up  and  put  her  strong  young  arms  about 
her,  and  kissed  her  softly. 

"Mother,  won't  you  lie  down?" 

"No,  dear;  I  am  not  tired.  Mr.  Barnes  has 
been  very  kind  in  telling  me  what  must  be  done. 
I  do  hope  everything  will  be  as — he  would  wish." 

They  did  not  speak  for  a  little  while,  and  then 
Esther  said,  in  a  low  voice:  "Mother,  I  don't 
want  to  worry  you,  and — and  perhaps  it's  very 
soon  to  speak  of  it,  but  have  you  thought  at  all 
of  what  is  going  to  become  of  us?" 

Her  mother  put  up  her  hand  with  a  sort  of 
shiver.  "No,  no;  not  yet.  We  mustn't  talk 
of  that  yet.  Oh,  Esther,  he  is  dead!  Poor 
Silas — poor  Silas!"  She  caught  her  breath  like 
a  child,  and  looked  up  at  her  tall  daughter  in  a 
frightened  way. 

Esther  nodded,  and  cried  a  little;  then  she 
wiped  her  eyes,  and  said,  hesitating:  "You're 
going  to  get  a  crape  veil,  aren't  you,  mother, 
and  a  black  dress?  And  I  think  I  ought  to 
have  a  black  dress." 

158 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

"We  haven't  any  money  for  new  clothes, 
Essie,"  Mrs.  Eaton  answered,  tremulously. 

"  But  I  think  we  ought  to  wear  black,"  Esther 
protested.  "It  isn't  proper  not  to." 

The  other  sighed  with  anxiety.  "  I  don't  see 
how  we  can.  He  would  not  wish  us  to  waste 
the  money." 

They  were  very  intimate,  these  two;  for  each 
had  found  the  other  a  shelter  from  the  fierce 
integrity  which  had  ruled  the  family  life.  And 
now  instinctively  they  nestled  together,  pant- 
ing and  chirping  like  two  frightened  birds,  and 
saying  to  each  other:  "He  would  wish  this,  or 
that." 

But  he  was  dead,  and  the  face  of  life  was  sud- 
denly changed  to  them  both.  The  withdrawal 
of  the  dominant  righteous  will  of  husband  and 
father  made  an  abrupt  silence  in  their  lives — a 
silence  which  was  as  overwhelming  in  its  way 
as  grief.  To  the  mother  it  was  as  though  hav- 
ing been  borne  helplessly  along  on  some  power- 
ful arm,  she  had  been  suddenly  set  down  on 
her  own  feet,  and  bidden  to  lead  and  carry 
others.  Esther's  frightened  question,  "What 
is  going  to  become  of  us?"  echoed  in  her  ears 
like  a  crash  of  bewildering  sound.  She  had  no 
answer;  all  she  knew  was  that  she  must  take 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

care  of  the  children:  work  for  them;  fight  for 
them — poor,  little,  weak  creature! — if  necessary. 
She  was  thirty-five,  this  mother,  but  she  looked 
much  older.  Once  she  must  have  been  pretty; 
one  knew  that  by  the  startled  softness  of  her 
hazel  eyes  and  the  delicately  cut  pale  lips ;  but 
her  forehead,  rounded  like  a  child's,  was  worn 
and  full  of  lines,  and  her  whole  expression  so 
timid  and  anxious  and  deprecating  that  one 
only  thought  of  what  her  life  must  have  been 
to  cut  so  deep  a  stamp  on  such  gentle  and  vague 
material.  It  had  been,  since  her  marriage,  a 
very  uneventful  life,  its  keenest  excitement 
the  making  both  ends  meet  on  her  husband's 
salary.  Before  that  there  had,  indeed,  been 
the  exciting  experience  of  marrying  in  opposi- 
tion to  her  father's  command,  and  being  prac- 
tically disowned  by  her  people.  She  was  Lydia 
Blair,  a  girl  of  good  family,  gentle  and  dutiful, 
as  girls  were  expected  to  be  thirty  years  ago — 
one  of  those  pleasant  girls  who  let  their  elders 
and  betters  think  for  them,  and  are  loved  as 
one  loves  comfortable  and  inanimate  things. 
And  then,  suddenly,  had  appeared  this  harsh, 
fiery,  narrow  New  England  minister,  of  anoth- 
er denomination,  of  another  temperament — for 
that  matter,  of  another  class;  and  she  had 
160 


THE    HOUSE    OF    RIMMON 

developed  a  will  of  her  own  and  married  him. 
Why  ?  Everybody  who  knew  her  asked,  "  Why  ?" 
Perhaps  afterwards  she  herself  asked  why — 
afterwards,  when  he  became  so  intent  upon 
saving  his  own  soul  that  he  had  no  time  to 
win  his  children's  love  or  to  make  love  to  his 
wife.  By  the  time  he  came  to  die,  very  likely 
he  had  forgotten  he  ever  had  made  love  to  her. 
He  called  her  "Mrs.  Eaton,"  and  he  was  as 
used  to  her  as  he  was  to  his  battered  old  desk 
or  his  worn  Bible.  But  when  he  came  to  die, 
he  lay  in  his  bed  and  watched  her  as  he  had  not 
done  these  fifteen  years;  and  once  he  said, 
when  she  brought  him  his  medicine,  "You've 
been  a  good  wife,  Mrs.  Eaton";  and  once, 
"  You're  very  kind,  Lily"  ; — but  that  was  at  the 
end,  and  the  doctor  said  his  mind  was  wander- 
ing. And  then  the  end  had  come,  in  the  spring 
night,  towards  dawn;  and  now  he  was  lying 
still,  as  indifferent  to  the  soft  weather,  the 
shower  of  apple  blossoms,  the  two  children 
whispering  about  the  house,  the  wife  staring, 
dry-eyed,  out  into  the  sunshine — as  indifferent 
as  he  always  had  been. 

Well,  well,  he  was  a  good  man — a  good  Pres- 
byterian, at  any  rate.  And  now  he  had  gone  to 
find  the  God  whom  he  had  defamed  and  vilified 

161 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

under  the  name  of  religion,  imputing  to  Him 
meanness  and  cruelty  and  revenge — the  pas- 
sions of  his  own  poor  human  nature. 
And  may  that  God  have  mercy  on  his  soul! 

II 

ROBERT  BLAIR  came  into  the  dining-room 
holding  the  "  dollar  telegram  "  in  his  hand.  His 
wife  looked  up  at  him,  smiling. 

"It  is  really  shameful  the  way  business  pur- 
sues you!  I  am  going  to  tell  Samuel  to  burn 
all  despatches  that  come  here.  Your  office  is 
the  place  for  those  horrid  yellow  papers." 

"It  isn't  business  this  time,  Nellie;  it's 
death." 

"Oh,  Robert!" 

"Oh,"  he  hastened  to  explain,  "it's  nothing 
that  touches  us.  My  sister  Lydia's  husband  is 
dead.  You  have  heard  me  speak  of  my  sister 
Lydia,  haven't  you?  It  was  long  before  your 
day,  you  baby,  that  she  married  him.  Ah,  well, 
what  a  pretty  girl  she  was!"  He  sat  down, 
shook  his  head  when  the  man  offered  him 
soup,  and  opened  his  napkin  thoughtfully. 
"  Well,  he's  dead.  He  was  a  most  objectionable 
person — " 

162 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

Mrs.  Blair  looked  at  the  butler's  back  as  he 
stood  at  the  sideboard,  and  raised  her  eyebrows; 
but  her  husband  went  on,  the  frown  deepening 
on  his  forehead : 

"My  father  forbade  it — did  I  never  tell  you 
about  it? — but  Lydia,  who  had  always  been  a 
nonentity,  suddenly  acquired  a  will  and  mar- 
ried him.  My  father  never  forgave  her.  She 
didn't  care  for  any  affection  that  didn't  include 
her  parson,  so  she  cut  herself  off  from  all  of  us. 
Of  course,  I'm  sorry  for  her  now;  but  I  don't 
feel  that  I  have  anything  to  reproach  myself 
with."  He  tapped  the  table  with  impatient 
fingers,  and  told  the  butler  that  he  didn't  want 
his  claret  boiled!  "Haven't  you  any  sense, 
Samuel?  You're  a  perfect  fool  about  wine; 
here,  throw  that  out  of  the  window,  and  get 
me  a  fresh  bottle!" 

Mrs.  Blair  was  a  beautiful  young  woman,  who, 
two  years  before,  had  married  this  irascible,  suc- 
cessful, dogmatic  man,  and  (so  Mercer  said) 
could  wind  him  round  any  one  of  her  pretty, 
jewelled  fingers  whenever  she  wanted  to.  He 
certainly  was  very  much  in  love — and  so  was 
she,  though  her  particular  world  never  believed 
it,  alleging  that  she  was  not  indifferent  to  the 
loaves  and  fishes. 

163 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

But  the  fact  was  Mrs.  Blair  took  the  loaves 
and  fishes  with  a  child-like  delight  which  meant 
appreciation,  certainly,  but  not  avarice.  She 
enjoyed  her  wealth,  and  her  life,  and  herself, 
immensely  and  openly ;  and  that  was  her  charm 
to  her  husband,  a  man  immersed  in  large  affairs, 
sagacious,  powerful,  and  without  imagination. 
He  was  a  cultivated  man,  because  his  forebears 
had  been  educated  people,  of  sober,  comfortable 
wealth;  hence  he  had  gone  to  college,  like  other 
young  men  of  his  class,  and  had  travelled,  and 
had  acquired  an  intellectual,  or  rather  a  com- 
mercial, knowledge  of  Art.  But,  until  he  mar- 
ried, every  instinct  was  for  power,  and  the  mak- 
ing of  money.  After  that,  though  the  guiding 
principle  remained  the  same,  a  sense  of  beauty 
did  awaken  in  him.  He  never  flagged  in  his 
fierce  and  joyous  and  cruel  passion  for  getting; 
but  he  delighted  in  his  wife — perhaps  as  one  of 
his  own  enormous  machines  might  have  de- 
lighted in  a  ray  of  sunlight  dancing  across  its 
steel  shafts  and  flickering  through  the  thunder- 
ous whir  of  its  driving-wheel.  He  loaded  the 
girl  he  married  with  every  luxury;  almost  im- 
mediately she  found  she  had  nothing  left  to  de- 
sire— from  dogs  to  diamonds,  houses,  yachts,  or 
pictures.  She,  poor  child,  realized  no  depriva- 
164 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

tion  in  seeing  every  wish  fulfilled,  and  thought 
herself  the  luckiest  and  the  happiest  woman  in 
the  world.  Her  money,  combined  with  a  good 
deal  of  common-sense,  gave  her  the  power  to 
interfere  helpfully  in  the  lives  of  less  fortunate 
people.  She  called  it  Philanthropy,  and  found 
playing  Providence  to  the  halt,  the  maimed,  and 
the  blind  a  really  keen  interest.  Her  impulse 
was  always  to  "manage";  and  so,  when  her 
husband,  frowning,  and  perhaps  a  little  less  sat- 
isfied with  himself  than  usual,  began  to  talk 
about  his  sister's  affairs,  Mrs.  Blair  was  instant- 
ly interested. 

"  Of  course  her  husband's  death  will  make  a 
difference  in  her  income?"  she  said,  as  they 
went  up-stairs  to  the  library.  "  A  country  min- 
ister's salary  doesn't  amount  to  much,  anyhow; 
but—" 

"Well,  she  made  her  bed,"  he  interrupted, 
sharply;  "she  ought  to  be  willing  to  lie  on  it!" 

"Oh  yes,  of  course;  but  now  the  man  is 
dead,  it's  different.  I  know  you  want  to  do 
something  for  her,  you  are  so  generous." 

He  pulled  her  pretty  ear  at  that,  and  told 

her  she  was  a  flattering  little  humbug.     "  What 

do  you  want,  diplomat?     You'll  bankrupt  me 

yet.     Am  I  to  build  a  palace  for  Lily?     Look 

165 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

here,  I  wrote  that  West  Virginia  college  presi- 
dent to-day  and  told  him  I'd  give  him  the 
money  he  wanted.  It's  all  your  doing,  but  I 
get  the  name  of  a  great  educator." 

"Oh,  Robert,  how  good  you  are!  I  think 
that  ought  to  silence  the  people  that  say  you 
'grind  the  face  of  the  poor.'  I  saw  that  in  the 
paper  to-day.  Beasts!  and  you  are  so  gener- 
ous! I  tell  you  what  I  want:  I  want  you  to 
have  them  come  here,  your  sister  and  the  chil- 
dren—" 

"You  angel!"  he  said.  "No;  that's  danger- 
ous. We  mightn't  like  the  brats.  The  boy's 
name  is  Silas.  I  don't  think  I  could  stand  a 
cub  named  Silas.  But  the  girl  wouldn't  be  so 
bad.  As  for  Lily  (we  used  to  call  her  Lily  when 
she  was  a  girl),  she  is  one  of  those  gentle,  color- 
less women,  all  virtue  and  no  opinions,  whom 
anybody  could  live  with.  Rather  a  fool,  you 
know.  But  we'll  have  them  come  and  make 
us  a  visit,  if  it  won't  bore  you.  That's  the  safe 
thing  to  do.  If  we  like  it,  we  can  prolong  it. 
If  we  don't  like  it,  nobody's  feelings  are  hurt 
when  it's  time  to  say  good-bye.  But,  of  course, 
I'll  see  that  poor  Lil  has  a  decent  income.  My 
father  didn't  leave  her  a  cent.  The  old  gentle- 
man said  he  wouldn't  have  '  that  hell-fire  Pres- 
166 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

byterian  use  any  of  his  money  for  his  damned 
heathen!'     But  I'll  look  after  her  now." 

Thus  it  was  that  a  home  was  prepared  for  Silas 
Eaton's  widow;  the  offer  of  it  came  the  day 
after  the  funeral,  when  she  sat  down  to  face  the 
future.  She  had  gone  over  her  assets,  in  her 
halting,  feminine  way,  counting  up  the  dollars 
on  her  fingers,  and  subtracting  the  debts  with 
a  stubby  lead-pencil  on  the  back  of  an  old  en- 
velope; and  she  had  discovered  that  when  all 
the  expenses  of  the  funeral  were  paid  she  would 
have  in  the  bank  one  hundred  and  seven- 
ty-five dollars.  If  she  could  manage  to  sell 
her  husband's  very  limited  library,  she  might 
add  a  few  dollars  to  that  sum ;  but  very 
few. 

One  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars!  She 
must  go  to  some  city  and  find  work,  so  that 
Silas  and  Esther  might  be  educated.  She  had 
got  as  far  as  that  when  her  brother's  letter  came. 
He  would  have  come  himself,  he  said,  but  he 
was  detained  by  an  annoying  strike  in  one  of  his 
rolling-mills,  and  so  wrote  to  ask  her  to  come, 
with  the  children,  and  visit  him  for  a  little 
while;  "then  we'll  see  what  can  be  done;  but 
don't  worry  about  ways  and  means.  I  will  see 
167 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

to  all  that;  I  know  of  a  nice  little  house  I  can 
get  for  you,  out  on  the  River  Road." 

She  read  the  straightforward,  kindly  words, 
her  heart  beating  so  she  could  scarcely  breathe. 
Then  she  covered  her  face  with  her  hands,  and 
trembled  with  excitement  and  relief.  "Oh," 
she  said,  "the  children  won't  be  poor!  Robert 
will  take  care  of  us." 


Ill 

WHEN  Mrs.  Eaton  went  to  Mercer,  the  change 
in  her  life  was  absolute  and  bewildering.  Robert 
Blair's  enormous  wealth  was,  at  first,  simply 
not  to  be  realized.  The  subdued  and  refined 
magnificence  of  the  house  conveyed  nothing  to 
his  sister's  mind,  because  she  had  no  standard 
of  value.  The  pictures  and  tapestries  implied 
not  money,  but  only  beauty  and  joy;  as  she 
had  never  dreamed  of  buying  anything  but  food 
and  clothes,  how  could  she  guess  that  all  the 
money  of  all  her  sixteen  years  on  a  minister's 
salary  would  not  have  purchased,  say,  the  small, 
misty  square  of  canvas  that  held  in  one  corner 
a  wonderful  and  noble  and  peasant  name  ? 

The  first  night  in  the  great  wainscoted  dining- 
room,  with  a  man  bringing  unknown  dishes  to 
168 


THE   HOUSE    OF    RIMMON 

her  elbow,  with  candles  shining  on  elaborate  and 
useless  pieces  of  silver,  with  the  glow  of  firelight 
flickering  out  from  under  a  superb  chimney- 
piece  of  Mexican  marble,  and  dancing  about  the 
stately  and  dignified  room — the  beauty  and  the 
graciousness  and  the  wonder  of  it  was  an  over- 
whelming experience,  though  she  had  not  the 
dimmest  idea  of  the  fortune  it  represented — a 
fortune  notorious  and  envied  the  land  over. 
That  she  had  had  no  share  in  it  until  now  did 
not  wound  her  in  the  least;  she  was  grateful 
for  the  warmth  and  the  comfort  and  the  kind- 
ness, now  they  had  come;  she  never  harked 
back  to  the  painful  years  of  silence  and  f orget- 
fulness. 

Her  brother  and  his  wife  watched  her,  amused 
and  interested ;  her  dazzled  admiration  of  every- 
thing was  half  touching,  half  droll.  But  what 
a  confession  it  was !  Eleanor  Blair  realized  this, 
and  she  said  to  herself,  warmly,  that  she  would 
make  up  to  Robert's  sister  for  the  past.  She 
was  in  her  element  in  arranging  her  sister-in- 
law's  future ;  she  made  a  dozen  plans  for  her  in 
the  first  week;  but  her  husband  laughed  and 
shook  his  head. 

"Wait,"  he  said;  "time  enough  when  we  see 
how  we  get  along." 

169 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

But  they  got  along  very  well.  The  children, 
after  the  first  shy  awkwardness  had  worn  off, 
were  really  attractive.  Silas,  an  eager,  brown- 
eyed  boy  of  eleven,  lovable  in  spite  of  his  name, 
made  artless  and  pretty  love  to  his  pretty  aunt, 
who  found  him  a  delightful  plaything.  "The 
serious  Esther,"  as  her  uncle  called  her,  was  a 
friendly  little  creature,  when  one  came  to  know 
her;  her  common-sense  commended  her  to  Mr. 
Blair,  and  her  dressmaking  and  her  education 
were  immediate  interests  to  her  aunt. 

So  it  came  about  that  the  visit  was  prolonged, 
and  the  project  of  a  little  establishment  of  her 
own  for  Mrs.  Eaton  gradually  given  up — at  all 
events,  for  the  present.  It  was  very  satisfactory 
as  it  was.  The  house  was  so  big,  they  were  not 
in  the  way;  and  Mrs.  Eaton's  mourning  kept 
her  in  the  background  in  regard  to  society — 
which  "was  just  as  well,"  Mrs.  Blair  admitted, 
smiling  to  herself — but  it  made  no  difference  in 
her  usefulness.  And  she  was  really  quite  useful 
in  one  way  or  another ;  she  could  write  an  intelli- 
gent note  to  a  tradesman,  or  reply  (by  formula) 
to  a  begging  letter ;  so,  by-and-by,  she  was  prac- 
tically her  sister-in-law's  secretary,  and  certain- 
ly the  Blairs  had  never  had  either  a  maid  or  a 
butler  who  could  begin  to  arrange  flowers  for  a 
170 


THE    HOUSE   OF    RIMMON 

dinner-party  as  Mrs.  Eaton  did.  She  was  silent, 
and  rather  vague,  but  always  gentle,  and  ready 
and  eager  to  fetch  and  carry  for  anybody.  She 
so  rarely  expressed  any  opinion  of  her  own,  that 
when  she  did  the  two  strong  and  good-natured 
people  who  made  her  life  so  easy  for  her  could 
hardly  take  it  seriously.  She  did,  to  be  sure, 
have  an  opinion  in  regard  to  changing  her  son's 
objectionable  name,  which  Eleanor  Blair  thought 
would  be  a  good  thing  to  do.  "  It  isn't  pretty," 
she  agreed,  "but  it  is  his  name,  so  it  cannot  be 
changed. ' '  And  once  she  refused  to  let  Mrs.  Blair 
send  Esther  to  dancing-school.  "  But  you  don't 
think  dancing  is  wrong,  do  you?"  her  sister-in- 
law  protested.  "Oh  no,"  Mrs.  Eaton  said,  ner- 
vously; "but  her  father  did,  so  I'd  rather  not." 

Robert  Blair  laughed  when  this  absurd 
stubbornness  was  quoted  to  him,  and  said  he 
would  straighten  it  out.  But  somehow  it  was 
not  straightened  out.  Esther  teased,  and  Mrs. 
Blair  was  just  a  little  impatient  and  sarcastic. 
But  Esther  did  not  go  to  dancing-school. 

"  I'm  sorry  to  displease  you,  Eleanor,"  Mrs. 
Eaton  said,  shrinking  as  she  spoke,  like  a 
frightened  animal  which  expects  a  blow,  "but 
— I  can't  allow  it.  Mr.  Eaton  would  not  have 
wished  it." 

ia  171 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Except  for  one  or  two  such  happenings,  she 
was  perfectly  negative;  yet,  negative  as  she 
seemed,  she  was  keenly  alive  to  the  advantages 
of  this  full,  rich  life  for  the  children,  and,  indeed, 
for  herself.  Mere  rest  was  such  a  luxury  to  her, 
for  she  had  lived  and  worked  as  only  a  country 
minister's  wife  must.  So,  to  feel  no  anxiety, 
to  have  delicate  food,  to  know  the  touch  of  fine 
linen — in  fact,  to  be  comfortable — meant  more 
to  her  than  even  her  brother  enjoying  his  gen- 
erosity towards  her,  could  possibly  imagine. 

So  life  began  for  his  sister  and  her  children 
in  Robert  Blair's  beautiful,  great  house  in  the 
new  part  of  Mercer — the  new  part  which  is  not 
offended  by  the  sight  of  those  great,  black  chim- 
neys roaring  with  sapphire  and  saffron  flames, 
or  belching  monstrous  coils  of  black  smoke 
all  spangled  with  showers  of  sparks.  Those 
chimneys  are  not  beautiful  to  look  upon,  but 
they  have  made  the  "new"  part  of  Mercer  pos- 
sible. When  Mrs.  Eaton  came  to  her  brother's 
house,  these  unlovely  foundations  of  his  fortune 
were  still  for  a  month.  There  was  a  strike  on, 
and  Mercer  was  cleaner  and  quieter  than  it  had 
been  for  many  months — in  fact,  than  it  had 
been  since  the  last  strike.  The  clang  and  clamor 
of  the  machine-shops,  the  scream  of  the  steel 
172 


THE    HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

saws  biting  into  the  living,  glowing  rails,  the 
thunderous  crash  of  plates  being  tested  in  the 
hot  gloom  of  the  foundries  had  all  stopped. 

"And  oh,  dear  me,"  said  Mrs.  Blair,  "what  a 
relief  it  is!  Of  course  it's  very  annoying  to 
have  them  strike,  and  all  that,  but  when  one 
drives  into  town  to  get  to  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  the  noise  is  perfectly  intolerable.  And 
when  the  wind  is  in  that  direction  we  can  really 
hear  the  roar  even  out  here." 

She  said  this  to  her  clergyman,  who  looked  at 
her  with  a  veiled  sparkle  of  humor  in  his  hand- 
some eyes. 

"  So  the  puddlers  shall  starve  to  make  a  Mer- 
cer holiday,"  he  said,  good-naturedly. 

"  If  they  choose  to  strike,  they  must  take  the 
consequences,"  she  replied,  with  some  spirit. 
"Besides,  they  are  the  most  ungrateful  creat- 
ures! Well,  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  we're 
coming  to!" 

"  Something  may  be  coming  to  us,"  her  visitor 
said,  with  a  whimsical  look ;  but  he  sighed,  and 
got  up  to  take  his  leave.  His  charming  parish- 
ioner sighed,  too,  prettily,  and  said,  with  much 
feeling : 

"  Of  course,  Mr.  West,  if  there  are  any  cases 
that  need  help,  you'll  let  me  know," 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"But,  Nellie,"  said  Mrs.  Eaton,  who  had  been 
sitting  silent,  as  usual,  and  quite  overlooked  by 
the  other  two,  "is  there  any  use  in  helping  the 
people  who  are  in  trouble  because  they  are  out 
of  work,  and  yet  not  letting  them  go  to  work?" 

Mrs.  Blair  laughed,  in  spite  of  herself,  the 
protest  was  so  unexpected  and  so  absurd  com- 
ing from  this  meek  source.  "My  dear,"  she 
said,  "you  don't  understand;  they  can  go  to 
work  if  they  want  to." 

"  Well,"  Mrs.  Eaton  said,  anxiously,  "  I  should 
think,  either  they  are  wrong,  and  so  you  should 
not  help  them,  or  they  are  right,  and  they  ought 
to  get  what  they  want." 

Her  sister  stared  at  her,  and  then  laughed 
again,  greatly  amused;  but  William  West  put 
on  his  glasses  and  gave  her  a  keen  look. 

"Mrs.  Eaton,  don't  you  want  to  help  us  on 
the  Organized  Relief  Association?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Lydia  Eaton,  "if  there's  any- 
thing I  can  do." 

"I  don't  want  to  steal  your  services  away 
from  any  other  parson,"  he  said,  pleasantly. 
"I  suppose  you  belong  to  Mr.  Hudson's  flock? 
You  are  a  Presbyterian,  of  course?" 

"  No,  sir,  I  am  not,"  she  said,  the  color  rising 
in  her  face. 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

"Oh,  then  you  do  belong  to  me?"  he  said, 
smiling. 

"I'm  not  an  Episcopalian,"  she  answered, 
with  a  frightened  look. 

"Then  what  on  earth  are  you?"  Mrs.  Blair 
asked  her,  laughing. 

"I'm  not  —  anything,"  she  said,  her  voice 
trembling;  "but,  Eleanor,  please  don't  speak 
of  it.  The  children  must  not  know  it.  Mr. 
Eaton  would  want  them  to  be  members  of  his 
Church.  So  we  must  always  go  there. 

There  was  an  instant's  awkward  pause.  Mrs. 
Blair  looked  very  disapproving. 

"Why,  Lydia,"  she  said,  "do  you  mean  you 
don't  believe  things?  Why,  I  never  had  a 
doubt  in  my  life!"  she  exclaimed,  turning  to  the 
minister,  who  was  silent. 

Mrs.  Eaton  caught  her  breath,  and  looked  at 
him,  too,  her  mild  eyes  full  of  pain.  "  Nobody 
ever  asked  me  before.  I  am  sorry,  but  I  can- 
not believe.  The  Bible  says  people  go  to  hell; 
but  God  is  good,  so  the  Bible  can't  be  true.  But 
Mr.  Eaton  would  wish  me  to  go  to  church." 

The  perfectly  simple  logic,  so  primitive  as  to 
stop  at  "the  Bible  says,"  was  irresistibly  funny; 
yet,  to  William  West,  infinitely  touching.  But 
he  put  the  discussion  aside  quietly. 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"So  you  will  come  on  our  committee?"  he 
said.  "We  shall  be  glad  to  have  you." 

But  when  he  went  away  he  laughed  a  little  to 
himself.  "The  iron  heel  of  Edwards,  I  sup- 
pose. But  how  direct!  Two  and  two  make 
four.  She  is  incapable  of  understanding  that 
they  sometimes  make  five." 

Mrs.  Blair  did  not  dismiss  the  matter  so  light- 
ly. She  was  annoyed  at  the  protest  about  the 
strikers,  and  that  impelled  her  to  straighten  out 
Mrs.  Eaton's  theological  beliefs.  There  was 
some  irritation  in  her  voice  as  she  began,  but 
she  was  in  earnest,  and  stopped  in  the  middle 
of  "  proofs  "  to  tell  Samuel  to  say  she  was  "  '  not 
at  home ' ; — I  don't  want  to  be  interrupted  just 
now;  I  want  to  show  you  how  wrong  you  are," 
she  said  to  her  sister-in-law,  very  seriously. 

"  But,  Eleanor,  you  are  at  home,"  Mrs.  Eaton 
protested,  in  a  frightened  way. 

"  My  dear,  that  is  a  form  of  speech." 

"But  it  makes  Samuel  tell  a  lie,"  she  said, 
nervously. 

"Oh,  Lily,  don't  be  silly,"  Mrs.  Blair  said, 
impatiently,  and  then  jumped  from  hell  to  the 
strikers — though,  as  it  happened,  the  distance 
between  them  was  not  so  great,  after  all. 
"Really,  now,  Lydia,  I  don't  think  you  ought 
176 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

to  speak  as  you  did  before  Mr.  West  about  the 
men.  In  the  first  place,  business  isn't  philan- 
thropy, and  Robert  can't  give  in  to  them.  And 
in  the  second  place,  they  are  behaving  out- 
rageously! I  should  think  you  would  have 
more  loyalty  to  Robert  than  to  seem  to  uphold 
them." 

"  I  only  meant—  "  Mrs.  Eaton  began,  breath- 
lessly. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  you  don't  know  what  you 
mean,"  Mrs.  Blair  interrupted,  laughing  and 
good-natured  again.  "  But  just  remember,  will 
you,  how  kind  Robert  is  ?  It  seems  to  me  he  is 
always  doing  things  for  this  ungrateful  place. 
Look  at  the  fountain  in  the  square;  that's  the 
last  thing." 

"  But  wouldn't  the  men  rather  have  had  run- 
ning water  in  the  tenements?"  Mrs.  Eaton  said; 
"there  are  only  hydrants  down  in  the  back 
yards." 

However,  as  that  first  year  in  Mercer  slipped 
by,  there  were  very  few  such  jars  between  the 
Blairs  and  their  meek  little  visitor.  The  strike 
ended  early  in  the  fall,  and  there  was  nothing 
to  call  out  any  objectionable  opinion  from  Mrs. 
Eaton  on  that  line. 

"  As  for  Lydia,"  Robert  Blair  said,  once,  "  you 
177 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

say  'go,'  and  she  goeth.  She  has  absolutely  no 
will  of  her  own." 

This  was,  apparently,  quite  true.  At  all 
events,  she  had  a  genius  for  obedience  and  a 
terror  of  responsibility.  In  the  organized  re- 
lief work  which  Mrs.  Blair's  clergyman  had 
proposed,  obedience  necessitated  responsibility 
sometimes,  and  no  one  knew  how  the  silent  lit- 
tle creature  suffered  when  she  had  to  decide 
anything.  But  she  did  decide,  usually  with 
remarkable  but  very  simple  common-sense. 

"And  always  on  the  supposition  that  two 
and  two  make  four,"  Mr.  West  said,  to  himself. 
He  found  her  literalness  a  little  aggravating  just 
at  first,  but  it  was  very  diverting.  He  used  to 
put  on  his  glasses  and  watch  her  anxious  face 
when  she  talked  to  him  or  received  his  orders 
(for  such  his  requests  or  suggestions  seemed  to 
her);  and  he  would  ask  her  questions  to  draw 
out  her  astounding  simplicity  and  directness  of 
thought,  and  find  her  as  refreshing  as  a  child. 
She  used  to  sit  up  before  him,  saying,  "Yes, 
sir,"  and  "  No,  sir,"  and  looking,  with  her  star- 
tled eyes,  like  a  little  gray  rabbit — for  at  the  end 
of  a  year  she  took  off  her  black  dress,  and  wore 
instead  soft  grays  that  were  very  pretty  and 
becoming.  Her  absolute  literalness  gave  him 
178 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

much  entertainment;  but  she  never  knew  it. 
If  she  had  guessed  it,  she  would  have  been 
humbly  glad  to  have  been  ridiculous,  if  it  had 
amused  him. 

And  so  the  first  year  and  a  half  went  by. 


IV 

IT  was  the  next  winter  that  she  asked  her 
first  question. 

"Mr.  West,"  she  said,  after  making  notes  of 
this  or  that  case  that  needed  looking  after  (for 
she  was  practically  visitor  for  St.  James  now) — 
"  Mr.  West,  I  would  like  to  ask  you  something." 

"Do,  my  dear  Mrs.  Eaton,"  he  answered, 
heartily. 

"I  would  like  to  ask  you,"  she  said,  her  eyes 
fixed  on  his,  to  lose  no  shade  of  meaning  in  his 
reply,  "do  you  think  it  would  be  right  for  one 
person  to  live  on  money  that  another  person 
had  stolen?" 

"If  they  knew  it  was  stolen,  of  course  not!" 
he  said,  smiling.  "  Has  a  pickpocket  offered  to 
go  halves  with  you?" 

"  No,  sir,"  she  answered,  so  gravely  that  her 
listener's  eyes  twinkled.  She  made  no  ex- 
planation, but  went  away  with  a  troubled  look. 
179 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

The  next  time  she  saw  him  she  had  another 
question : 

"But  suppose  the  person  who  lived  on  the 
money  the  other  person  stole  needed  it  very 
much.  Suppose  they  hadn't  anything  else  in 
the  world.  Suppose  their  children  hadn't  any- 
thing else.  Would  it  be  their  business  to  ask 
where  it  came  from,  Mr.  West?" 

"  If  it  was  their  business  to  spend  it,  it  would 
be,"  he  told  her.  "  Oh,  my  dear  lady,  the  ques- 
tion of  complicity  is  a  pretty  big  one!"  He 
sighed,  thinking  how  little  she  realized  that  she 
was  guessing  at  the  riddle  of  the  painful  earth. 

Again  she  went  away,  her  face  falling  into 
lines  of  care.  But  William  West  never  thought 
of  the  matter  again.  Indeed,  he  had  no  time 
to  think  of  his  quiet  almoner ;  those  were  alarm- 
ing days  in  Mercer.  The  echoes  of  that  storm 
which  shook  not  only  the  town,  but  the  very 
State  and  nation,  are  still  rolling  and  muttering 
in  the  dark  places  of  the  land. 

Another  strike  had  begun  in  October.  As  for 
the  deep  and  far-reaching  causes,  the  economic 
and  industrial  necessities,  the  vast  plans  of  or- 
ganizations and  trusts,  they  have  no  place  in 
this  statement  of  the  way  in  which  one  ignorant 
woman  regarded  their  effects — a  woman  living 
180 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

quietly  in  her  brother's  house,  doing  her  work, 
expending  her  little  charities,  trying  to  relieve 
the  dreadful  misery  of  those  wintry  days,  with 
about  as  much  success  as  a  child  who  playing 
beside  some  terrific  torrent  tries  to  dam  it 
with  his  tiny  bank  of  twigs  and  pebbles.  Rob- 
ert Blair's  sister  had  no  economic  or  ethical 
theories;  she  had  only  an  anguished  heart  at 
the  suffering  in  that  dreary  mill  town,  a  dread- 
ful bewilderment  at  its  contrast  with  the  un- 
touched luxury  of  her  brother's  house.  That 
she  should  find  a  child  in  one  of  the  tenements 
dying  at  its  mother's  barren  breast,  while  her 
own  children  fared  sumptuously  every  day; 
that  a  miserable  man  should  curse  her  because 
her  brother  was  robbing  him  of  work  and 
warmth  and  decency,  even,  while  she  must 
bless  that  same  brother  for  what  he  was  giving 
her,  was  a  dreadful  puzzle.  As  she  understood 
the  situation,  this  misery  existed  because  her 
brother  would  no  longer  give  even  fourteen 
cents  an  hour  to  human  beings  who  had  to 
stand  half  naked  in  the  scorch  of  intense  fur- 
naces, reeking  with  sweat,  taking  a  breathless 
moment  to  plunge  waist-deep  into  tanks  of  cold 
water;  to  men  who  worked  where  the  crash 
of  exploding  slag  or  the  accidental  tipping  of  a 
181 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

ladle  might  mean  death ;  to  gaunt  and  stunted 
creatures,  hollow-eyed,  with  bleared  and  sod- 
den faces,  whose  incessant  toil  to  keep  alive  had 
crushed  out  the  look  of  manhood,  and  left  them 
silent,  hopeless,  brutish,  with  only  one  certainty 
in  their  stupefied  souls:  "men  don't  grow  old  in 
the  mills"  . . .  That  these  things  should  be,  while 
she  was  clothed  in  soft  raiment  bought  by  wealth 
which  these  desperate  beings  had  helped  to 
create  —  meant  to  this  ignorant  woman  that 
there  was  something  wrong  somewhere.  It 
was  not  for  her  to  say  what  or  where.  She 
had  no  ambition  to  reform  the  world.  She  did 
not  protest  against  the  "unearned  increment," 
nor  did  she  have  views  as  to  "buying  labor  in 
the  cheapest  market."  She  did  not  know  any- 
thing about  such  phrases.  The  only  thing  that 
concerned  her  was  whether  she,  living  on  her 
brother's  money,  had  any  part  or  lot  in  the  suf- 
fering about  her?  She  grew  nervous  and  hag- 
gard and  more  distrait  and  literal  than  ever. 
She  wished  she  dared  lay  her  troubles  before 
the  wise,  gentle,  strong  man  who,  to  her,  was 
all  that  was  good  and  great.  But  it  did  not 
seem  to  her  right  to  criticise  her  brother  to  his 
clergyman.  She  never  realized  how  amusing 
her  simplicity  might  be,  laid  up  against  the 
182 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

enormous  complexity  of  the  industrial  ques- 
tion; to  her  it  was  only,  "If  Robert  is  rich, 
and  doesn't  give  his  workmen  enough  to  live 
on,  are  not  the  children  and  I  stealing  from  the 
men  in  living  on  Robert's  money?" 

This  little  question,  applied  to  the  relations 
of  capital  and  labor,  is  of  course  absurd;  but 
she  asked  it  all  the  same,  this  soft,  negative, 
biddable  creature.  She  had  gone  to  take  some 
food  to  a  hungry  household,  and  she  came  away 
burning  with  shame  because  she  was  not  hun- 
gry! It  had  been  a  cold,  bright  November 
day;  she  went  past  one  of  the  silent  furnaces 
along  the  black  cinder  path  to  the  river-bank, 
where  the  flattened  cones  of  slag  were  dumped ; 
some  of  them  were  still  slightly  warm. 

It  was  quiet  enough  here  to  think:  After  all, 
Robert's  money  did  so  much  good ;  there  was 
the  great  fountain  in  the  square,  and  the  hos- 
pital, and  the  free  night-school.  And  think  of 
what  he  was  doing  for  Essie  and  Silas!  Oh,  it 
surely  wasn't  her  business  to  ask  why  he  cut 
the  men's  wages  down! 

There  was  a  flare  of  sunset  flushing  the  calm 

blue  of  the  upper  heavens,  and  in  the  river, 

running  black  and  silent  before  her,  a  red  glow 

smouldered  and  brightened.    Behind  her,  and 

183 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

all  along  the  opposite  bank,  the  furnaces  were 
still.  Oh,  the  misery  of  that  black  stillness! 
If  only  she  could  see  again  the  monstrous  sheets 
of  flame,  orange  and  azure,  bursting  with  a 
roar  of  sparks  from  under  the  dampers  of  the 
great  chimneys!  It  would  mean  work  and 
warmth  and  food  to  so  many!  By  some  un- 
suggested  flash  of  memory  the  parsonage  gar- 
den came  swiftly  to  her  mind.  It  must  be  ly- 
ing chill  in  the  wintry  sunset;  she  could  see 
the  little  house  behind  it,  with  its  bare,  clean 
poverty;  she  wished  she  were  back  in  it  again 
with  the  two  children!  The  beauty  and  the 
luxury  of  her  brother's  house  seemed  suffocat- 
ing and  intolerable ;  and  yet  would  it  feed  the 
strikers  if  she  should  starve  ? — the  vision  of  her 
own  destitution  without  her  brother's  money 
was  appalling.  She  sat  down  on  a  piece  of  slag, 
a  little  faint  at  the  thought.  Just  then,  from 
down  below  her,  on  the  great  heap  of  refuse,  she 
heard  voices. 

"  Come  farther  up ;  they're  hotter  higher  up," 
a  woman  said,  shrilly. 

Then  a  miserable  little  group  came  clamber- 
ing over  the  great  cones  of  cooling  slag,  and  a 
child  cried  out,  joyously:  "This  here  one's  hot, 
mammy!" 

184 


THE   HOUSE    OF    RIMMON 

The  woman,  catching  sight  of  Robert  Blair's 
sister,  though  not  recognizing  her,  said,  harshly: 

"You  bet  hangman  Blair  has  a  fire  in  his 
house  to-day.  Well,  thank  God,  he  'ain't  made 
no  cut  in  slag  yet ;  we  can  get  a  bit  of  warmth 
here.  I  wish  he  may  freeze  in  his  bed!" 

Lydia  Eaton  answered,  stammering  and  in- 
coherent, something  about  the  cold  weather; 
and  then,  she  was  so  overstrained  and  nervous, 
she  burst  out  crying.  "Oh,  won't  you  please 
let  me  give  you  this?"  she  said,  and  put  some 
money  into  the  woman's  hand. 

She  went  away,  stumbling,  because  her  eyes 
were  blurred  with  tears,  and  saying  to  herself: 
"What  shall  I  do?" 

When  she  reached  the  street  again,  she  almost 
ran  into  Mr.  West  before  she  saw  him.  When 
she  did,  she  stopped  abruptly,  putting  her  hands 
on  his  arm,  and,  in  her  agitation,  shaking  it 
violently,  her  whole  face  convulsed  and  terri- 
fied. 

"Tell  me — you  know;  you  are  good:  whose 
fault  is  it— for  all— this  ?  Robert's  ?" 

He  understood  instantly,  and  was  very  gen- 
tle with  her. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Eaton,  that  is  a  very  big  ques- 
tion. It  isn't  any  one  man's  fault.  It  seems 
185 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

strange,  but  the  weather  in  India  may  be  the 
reason  we  are  all  so  wretched  in  Mercer.  Your 
brother  may  be  forced  to  make  this  cut  by 
great  laws,  which  perhaps  you  cannot  under- 
stand." 

"But  we  go  on  being  warm,"  she  said;  "I 
wouldn't  say  anything  if  we  were  all  cold  to- 
gether. Oh,  those  little  children  had  to  get 
warm  on  the  slag!  Oh,  sir,  I  don't  believe  the 
Saviour  would  have  been  warm  while  the  chil- 
dren were  cold!" 

She  looked  at  him  passionately,  abruptly 
applying  the  precepts  of  the  Founder  of  his 
religion. 

"Ah,  well,  you  know,"  William  West  said, 
kindly,  "this  whole  matter  is  so  enormously 
complicated — "  And  then  he  stammered  a 
little,  for,  after  all,  how  could  he  explain  to  this 
poor,  little,  frightened,  ignorant  soul  that  we 
have  learned  how  injurious  to  the  race  would  be 
the  literal  application  of  the  logic  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  ?  Nowadays  the  disciple  is  wiser 
than  his  master,  and  the  servant  more  prudent 
than  his  Lord;  we  know  that  to  feed  the  five 
thousand  with  loaves  and  fishes,  without  re- 
ceiving some  equivalent,  would  be  to  pauperize 
them.  But  of  course  Mrs.  Eaton  could  not 
186 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

be  made  to  understand  that.  The  clergyman 
quieted  her,  somehow;  perhaps  just  by  his 
gentle  pitif ulness ;  or  else  her  reverence  for  him 
silenced  her.  She  did  not  ask  him  any  more 
questions;  and  there  was  no  one  else  to  ask, 
except  her  brother,  and  just  now  it  would  have 
been  hard  to  find  the  chance  to  ask  Robert 
Blair  anything. 

The  strike  had  slowly  involved  all  the  mills 
owned  by  a  syndicate  of  which  he  was  chair- 
man. He  had  to  go  to  South  Bend,  where  the 
great  smelting-furnaces  are;  he  was  mobbed 
there,  though  with  no  worse  results  than  the 
unpleasantness  of  eggs  and  cabbage  stalks;  still, 
the  wickedness  of  those  dreadful  creatures  was 
something  too  awful,  Mrs.  Blair  said,  crying  with 
anger  and  fright  over  the  newspaper  account. 
At  still  another  mill  town  a  ghastly  box  reached 
him,  labelled,  "  Starved  by  the  Blair  syndicate." 
Robert  Blair  paled  and  sickened  at  its  contents, 
but  he  swore  under  his  breath:  "Let  them 
starve  their  brats,  if  they  want  to;  it  isn't  my 
business.  There's  work  for  them  if  they  want 
it;  but  the  curs  would  rather  loaf.  This  coun- 
try can  go  to  the  devil  before  I'll  give  in  to 
them!" 

He  did  not  get  back  to  Mercer  until  Decem- 
'3  187 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

her.  "I  wouldn't  let  the  fools  keep  me  from 
you  on  Christmas,"  he  told  his  wife,  savagely, 
and  caught  her  in  his  arms  with  a  sort  of  rage. 
"Were  you  very  lonely?  You've  been  nerv- 
ous— I  can  see  it  in  your  face.  You  are  paler!" 
He  ground  his  teeth;  that  those  brutes  should 
have  made  her  paler! 

"Of  course  I  was  lonely,"  she  said,  smiling, 
though  her  eyes  were  bright  with  tears,  "and 
I've  been  frightened  almost  to  death  about 
you,  too.  Oh,  that  mob!" 

"  You  little  goose;  didn't  I  tell  you  there  was 
no  danger?  I  always  had  two  detectives.  But 
I  used  to  get  anxious  about  you.  I  telegraphed 
the  mayor  to  detail  an  officer  to  be  always  about 
the  house.  Heaven  knows  what's  going  to  be 
the  end  of  this  business,  Nell.  Well,  sweet- 
heart, may  I  have  some  dinner,  or  must  I  go 
and  dress  first?" 

"No.  You're  dreadfully  dusty,  but  I  can't 
lose  sight  of  you  for  a  moment,"  she  said,  gayly. 
"Robert,  I  should  have  died  if  you  hadn't  been 
at  home  for  Christmas!" 

His  sister  and  the  children  met  him  at  the 

dining-room  door — Silas,  capering  about  with 

delight;   Esther,  prettier  than  ever,  coming  to 

hang  on  his  arm,  and  rub  her  cheek  against  his 

1 88 


THE    HOUSE    OF   RIMMON 

shoulder,  and   say  how  glad   she  was  to  see 
him. 

"Robert,  it's  perfectly  disgusting,"  Mrs. 
Blair  complained,  "but  a  delegation  insists 
upon  seeing  you  to-night ;  they  are  coming  about 
eight." 

"Oh,  confound  it!"  he  said,  frowning;  "the 
strike,  of  course?  A  lot  of  parsons  meddling 
with  what  they  know  nothing  about." 

"There  are  some  parsons  among  them,  I 
suppose,"  she  said;  "but  the  mayor  is  coming. 
Do  get  rid  of  them  as  soon  as  you  can,  so  that 
I  may  have  a  little  of  you." 

She  looked  so  pretty  as  she  sat  at  the  head 
of  her  table,  beseeching  him,  that  he  declared 
he  would  kick  the  delegation  out  if  they  stayed 
over  ten  minutes;  then  he  tossed  a  small,  white 
velvet  box  across  the  roses  in  the  big  silver  bowl 
in  the  middle  of  the  table,  and  watched  her 
flash  of  joy  as  she  opened  it. 

"It  seems  to  me  I  have  some  more  boxes 
somewhere,"  he  said,  good-humoredly.  "There, 
Essie;  if  your  aunt  Eleanor  had  packed  me  off 
to  get  into  my  dress-suit,  I  wouldn't  have  found 
this  one  in  my  pocket.  Lydia,  you  sober  old 
lady,  can  you  wear  that?  As  for  you,  Silas, 
you  don't  want  any  gewgaws,  do  you?  We 
189 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

fellows  think  more  of  a  bit  of  paper  with  three 
figures  on  it,  hey?" 

"There — there's  the  bell!  It's  your  horrid 
delegation,"  Mrs.  Blair  cried.  "Just  let  them 
wait  till  you  finish  dinner.  And  do  get  rid  of 
them  quickly.  Mr.  Hudson,  Lydia's  minister, 
will  be  there;  tell  him  to  wait  a  minute  when 
the  others  have  gone.  I  want  to  speak  to 
him." 

"I  thought  little  Hudson  had  more  sense," 
Robert  Blair  grumbled,  rising  and  going  into 
the  library  to  meet  a  dozen  of  his  fellow-citizens, 
some  of  them  men  with  grave  and  startled  faces, 
who  from  pity  for  the  five  thousand  fools  who 
were  turning  Mercer  upside  down,  and  from 
good-humored  interest  in  the  affairs  of  their 
powerful  townsman,  were  beginning  to  feel  the 
sting  of  personal  alarm  about  their  own  con- 
cerns. 

These  men  were  saying  to  each  other  what 
the  newspapers  had  been  saying  for  two  months, 
that  Robert  Blair,  for  vanity  or  obstinacy  or 
greed,  was  bringing  alarming  disaster,  not  mere- 
ly upon  a  few  thousand  desperate  and  hungry 
and  unreasonable  puddlers,  but  upon  the  re- 
spectable, well-to-do  business  population  of  his 
city. 

190 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

"And  he's  got  to  stop  it!"  the  mayor  said, 
angrily. 

"  It  would  be  a  good  job  if  somebody  would 
blow  him  up  with  dynamite,"  said  the  Baptist 
deacon,  who  was  the  wealthiest  merchant  in 
town.  "He'll  swamp  us  all  if  we  don't  look 
out." 

As  for  the  clergyman,  he  looked  very  miser- 
able, for  he  had  the  expenses  of  his  church  and 
his  own  salary  in  mind,  and  between  offending 
Mr.  Blair  and  not  protesting  against  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  strike,  the  poor  little  man  was 
between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Robert  Blair,  calm  and 
hard  ("as  nails,"  the  Baptist  deacon  said),  "I 
appreciate  the  honor  of  your  call,  and  I  hope  I 
have  listened  with  proper  courtesy  and  patience 
to  what  you  had  to  say;  but  allow  me  to  call 
your  attention  to  certain  facts  which  seem  to 
contradict  your  assertions  that  I  am  not  acting 
for  the  public  good  in  this  matter  of  the  strike. 
Mr.  Mayor,  if  my  wealth  had  been  gained  by 
the  subversion  of  law  and  order,  as  you  suggest, 
I  am  sure  you  could  not  have  accepted  any  of 
it  for  your  campaign — ah — expenses.  For  you, 
Mr.  Davis,  a  church-member,  a  deacon,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  I  need  only  remind  you  of  your  will- 
191 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

ingness  to  borrow,  I  will  not  say  how  many 
thousands,  as  the  basis  of  your  most  successful 
business  (though  I  would  not  be  thought  to  un- 
derrate your  own  prudence  and  economy  in 
paying  your  women  clerks  a  little  less  than  they 
can  live  on) .  And  as  for  my  worthy  friend  here, 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Hudson,  if  my  money  were, 
as  he  has  so  delicately  implied,  'blood-money,'  I 
cannot  think  he  would  have  accepted  the  con- 
tribution I  had  the  privilege  of  making  towards 
the  alterations  of  his  church.  Gentlemen,  you 
have  felt  it  your  duty  to  remonstrate  with  me 
upon  my  way  of  making  money ;  so  long  as  you 
are  content  to  spend  that  money,  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  your  remonstrances  are  based  upon 
anything  else  than  the  inconvenience  to  your- 
selves of  certain  exigencies  which  I  deeply  regret 
but  which  result  from  methods  which  commend 
themselves  to  me,  and  which,  I  observe,  you 
apply  in  your  own  concerns :  you  all  pay  as  lit- 
tle as  you  can  for  what  you  want;  I  pay  as 
little  as  I  can  for  labor.  For  your  immediate 
request  that  I  submit  to  the  demands  of  the 
strikers,  I  can  only  say  that  when  Mr.  Davis 
will  give  away  in  charity  the  fortune  built  upon 
the  outcome  of  those  methods ;  when  his  honor 
the  mayor  will  refund  the — ah — expenses  of  his 
192 


THE   HOUSE   OF    RIMMON 

recent  successful  campaign  and  call  it  con- 
science-money;  when  the  Reverend  Mr.  Hud- 
son will  give  up  improving  his  church — in  fact, 
when  you  all  consent  to  buy  your  shirts  or  your 
potatoes  in  the  dearest  market,  I  will  consent 
to  do  the  same  thing;  I  will  alter  the  methods 
whereby  I  have  had  the  honor  of  serving  you, 
and  I  will  pay  more  for  labor  than  it  is  worth. 
Yes,  gentlemen,  we  will  all  reform  together. 
When  you  are  ready  for  that,  I  will  recognize 
a  moral  issue,  as  Mr.  Hudson  so  admirably  ex- 
presses it.  Until  then  I  will  try  to  mind  my  own 
business.  If  it  were  not  perhaps  discourteous, 
I  would  recommend  a  like  course  of  action  to 
this  committee.  Gentlemen,  I  bid  you  good- 
evening." 

He  was  pale  with  rage.  He  forgot  his  wife's 
message  to  the  minister;  he  bowed,  and  stood 
with  folded  arms  watching  the  withdrawal  of 
the  humiliated  and  angry  delegation,  "with 
their  tails  between  their  legs,"  the  little  clergy- 
man said  to  himself,  stung  by  the  impudent  in- 
justice of  it  all. 

Mr.  Blair  went  into  the  drawing-room,  breath- 
ing hard  with  the  restraint  he  had  put  upon 
himself,  for  his  coldly  insolent  words  had  been 
no  outlet  to  his  anger.     "  Don't  talk  about  it," 
193 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

he  said,  violently.  "I  won't  hear  another 
word  on  the  subject.  Nell,  I  thought  that  lit- 
tle Hudson  was  not  entirely  a  jackass,  though 
he  is  a  parson;  he  had  the  impertinence  to  say 
that  'Brother  West'  agreed  with  him.  I  don't 
believe  it!  But  if  it's  true,  why,  then,  West  is 
a  meddling  idiot,  like  all  the  rest  of  these 
damned,  self-seeking  philanthropists." 

"Robert,  dear!  the  children,"  murmured 
Mrs.  Blair,  nervously. 

His  face  was  dully  red,  and  his  blue,  fierce 
eyes  cut  like  knives;  one  felt  an  unspoken 
epithet  applied  to  the  children,  who  watched 
him  furtively,  with  frightened  glances,  and 
moved  about  awkwardly,  speaking  to  each 
other  in  undertones.  A  moment  before  every- 
thing had  been  full  of  charm  and  graciousness ; 
their  pretty  aunt  sat,  indolent  and  graceful,  on 
a  yellow  sofa,  leaning  back  against  some  ivory 
satin  cushions,  with  a  great,  yellow-shaded 
lamp  shining  down  on  her  delicate  dark  beauty ; 
the  flicker  of  the  fire  behind  the  sparkling  brass 
dogs  went  leaping  softly  about  the  room,  glow- 
ing on  the  walls,  which  were  covered  above  the 
white  wainscoting  with  yellow  damask,  on 
which  the  candle-light  from  the  high  sconces 
fell  with  a  yellow  shine ;  everything  was  golden 
194 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

and  bright  and  rich,  and  the  warm,  still  air  was 
delicate  with  the  scent  of  violets.  Then  into  it 
had  burst  this  violent  and  angry  presence. 

Robert  Blair  tramped  up  and  down,  kicked  a 
little  gilded  stool  half  across  the  room,  caught 
his  foot  in  a  rug,  stumbled,  and  then  swore. 
Mrs.  Blair's  fox-terrier,  Pat,  shrunk  under  a 
table  and  looked  at  him,  trembling.  There  is 
no  embarrassment  quite  like  the  embarrassment 
of  listening  to  a  person  for  whom  one  has  a  re- 
gard making  a  fool  of  himself.  Nobody  spoke. 
Then  Mrs.  Eaton  said  in  a  low  voice:  "Silas, 
you  and  Esther  must  go  up-stairs." 

"The  trouble  is,"  her  brother  went  on,  with 
angry  contempt,  "these  men  don't  know  what 
they  are  talking  about;  they  don't  know  any- 
thing about  the  market;  they  don't  know  any- 
thing about  the  necessities  of  trade;  all  they 
know  is  their  dividends ;  if  they  were  cut,  there'd 
be  a  howl !  But  they  presume  to  dictate  to  us ; 
to  tell  us  the  money  is  '  blood-money ' ;  all  the 
same,  they  are  ready  enough  to  spend  it  on  their 
own  carcasses!" 

Mrs.  Eaton  had  closed  the  door  on  her  chil- 
dren, and  came  and  stood  by  a  little  silver- 
cluttered  table,  under  the  big  yellow  lamp.  "  I 
think  Robert  is  quite  right,"  she  said. 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

The  approval  of  this  mild  creature  was  like 
an  edge  laid  against  the  tense  thread  of  Robert 
Blair's  anger.  He  burst  into  a  laugh. 

"Bless  your  heart,  Lydia,  I  didn't  know 
you  were  in  the  room.  Well,  my  dear,  I'm 
glad  you  approve  of  me." 

"I  don't,  brother." 

"Oh,  you  don't?  Where  are  the  chicks? 
Sent  them  out  of  the  room  because  I  used 
bad  words?  Well,  I  oughtn't  to  swear  in  the 
drawing-room,  that's  a  fact.  Place  aux Dames! 
But,  after  all,  I  only  dropped  the  'place." 

"Oh!"  his  wife  said;  and  then,  "you  are 
very  naughty!"  and  pouted,  and  pulled  him 
down  on  his  knees  beside  her. 

"I  thought  it  was  very  natural  to  be  angry 
at  the  rug,"  Mrs.  Eaton  said,  breathlessly; 
"I've  often  felt  like  speaking  that  way  my- 
self—" 

"Do,  Lydia,  do!"  Mr.  Blair  interrupted,  with 
a  laugh. 

"  — but  Mr.  Eaton  would  never  have  allowed 
the  children  to  hear,  and— 

"Come,  now!    Haven't  I  apologized?    Don't 

rub  it  in.     I'll  give  you  something  extra  to  put 

in  the  plate  on  Sunday,  because  I  did  pitch 

into  your  man  Hudson  like  the  devil!    I  told 

196 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

him  so  long  as  he  spent  my  'blood-money,'  for 
his  darned  improvements,  he  couldn't  reproach 
me  for  earning  it." 

"Oh,"  Lydia  Eaton  said,  her  hands  squeezed 
together — "oh  no!  He  is  quite  different  from 
— me.  It  is  you  who  are  spending  the — blood- 
money  on  the  improvements.  If  he  were  spend- 
ing it  on  himself,  like — like  me,  it  would  be  dif- 
ferent." 

Her  brother  looked  up  at  her  from  his  foot- 
stool at  his  wife's  feet,  first  amused,  and  then 
bored. 

"My  dear  Lily,  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what 
you  are  talking  about.  I'm  sorry  if  I  stepped 
on  your  toes  about  your  parson.  He  means 
well.  Only  he  is  a  parson,  so  I  suppose  he  can't 
help  being  rather  ladylike  in  business  matters. 
Do  drop  the  subject;  I  am  sick  of  the  whole 
thing.  How  is  your  conservatory,  Nell?  Are 
those  violets  the  result  of  your  agricultural 
efforts?" 

"I  think,  Robert,"  his  sister  said,  in  her  low 
voice,  that  shivered  and  broke,  "I  must  just 
say  one  thing  more :  I  must  give  you  back  this 
beautiful  thing  you  gave  me  at  dinner.  And  I 
must  go  away  with  the  children." 

"What  under  the  sun!"  he  began,  frowning; 
197 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

then  he  got  up  and  stood  on  the  hearth-rug, 
his  back  to  the  fire.  "Lydia,  I  hope  you  are 
not  going  to  be  a  fool  ?  What  are  you  talking 
about  ?  Sit  down — sit  down !  You're  as  white 
as  a  ghost.  Lily,  I'm  afraid  you're  a  great 
goose.  What's  the  matter?"  He  could  not 
help  softening  as  he  looked  at  her.  She  stood 
there  by  the  little  tottering  table  loaded  with 
its  foolish  bits  of  silver,  so  tense  and  quivering 
that  even  his  impatient  eyes  could  not  fail  to  see 
her  agitation. 

"Robert,  you  have  been  so  kind  to  us;  you 
are  so  good  to  us — oh,  I  don't  know  how  I  can 
do  it!" — she  broke  into  an  anguished  sob — 
"  but  I  must.  Mr.  Eaton  would  never  have  let 
the  children  be  supported  on  money  that  was 
not — that  was  not  good." 

There  was  silence;  the  clock  in  the  hall 
chimed  ten.  Then  Eleanor  Blair,  sitting  up, 
pale  and  angry,  said: 

"Well,  upon  my  word!" 

But  her  husband  looked  at  his  sister  with 
sudden  kindness  in  his  eyes.  "  Lily,  you  don't 
understand.  When  I  said  what  I  did  to  Mr. 
Hudson — of  course,  that  has  put  it  into  your 
head — I  didn't  really  mean  it.  In  the  first 
place,  I'm  an  honest  man  (I'll  just  mention  that 
198 


THE   HOUSE   OF    RIMMON 

in  passing),  but  it  is  not  your  business  nor  his  to 
judge  my  business  methods.  It  isn't  a  pretty 
thing  to  look  a  gift-horse  in  the  mouth,  Lil." 

"It  isn't  what  you  said  to  Mr.  Hudson,"  she 
answered.  "I've  been  thinking  about  it  for 
nearly  a  year.  Robert,  you  pay  them  so  little, 
and  I — I  have  all  this." 

She  looked  about  the  beautiful  room  with  a 
sort  of  fright;  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  warm 
and  stately  walls  hid  human  misery  lying  close 
outside — hunger  and  hatred,  cold  and  sickness, 
and  the  terror  of  to-morrow.  The  impudent 
luxury  of  this  enormous  wealth  struck  her  like 
a  blow  on  the  mouth. 

"They,"  she  said,  with  a  sob,  "are  hungry." 

Her  brother,  divided  between  irritation  and 
amusement,  was  touched  in  spite  of  himself. 

"My  dear  Lily,"  he  said,  "you  can't  under- 
stand this  thing.  To  put  it  vulgarly,  you've 
bitten  off  more  than  you  can  chew.  Look  here, 
the  men  can  go  to  work  to-morrow  if  they  want 
to ;  but  they  don't  want  to.  I  offer  them  work, 
and  they  can  take  it  or  leave  it.  Well,  they 
leave  it.  It's  their  affair,  not  mine." 

But  she  shook  her  head  miserably.  "  I  don't 
understand  it.  If  you  were  poor,  too,  it  would 
be  different." 

199 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"Well,  really r  said  Mrs.  Blair. 

But  Robert  Blair  was  wonderfully  patient. 

"There's  another  thing  you  must  remem- 
ber, Lily;  these  people  are  far  better  off  on 
what  I  am  willing  to  pay  them  than  they 
were  in  Europe,  where  most  of  them  came 
from." 

"But,  Robert,"  she  said,  passionately,  "be- 
cause they  could  be  worse  off  doesn't  seem  to 
be  any  reason  why  they  shouldn't  be  better  off. 
And — it  isn't  kind." 

" Kind?"  Her  brother  looked  at  her  blank- 
ly, and  then,  with  a  shout  of  laughter:  "Lydia, 
you  are  as  good  as  a  play!  No,  my  dear;  I 
don't  run  my  mills  for  '  kindness.' ' 

"  But,"  she  said,  almost  in  a  whisper,  "  '  what- 
soever ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto 
you—' " 

Mrs.  Blair  made  a  gesture  of  disgust. 

" — oh,  brother,  I  didn't  mean  to  find  fault 
with  you.  Only  with  myself.  I — I  haven't 
any  right  to  spend  money  that  I — don't  know 
about." 

"Well,  anything  more?"  Robert  Blair  said, 
a  little  tired  of  her  foolishness.  "  My  dear,  like 
the  parson,  you  mean  well ;  but  you  are  a  great 
goose!" 

200 


THE    HOUSE    OF    RIMMON 

As  for  his  wife,  she  did  not  even  answer  Mrs. 
Eaton's  tremulous  "good-night." 


THE  husband  and  wife  looked  at  each  other; 
then  Robert  Blair  flung  his  head  back  with  a 
laugh. 

"She  is  perfectly  delicious!" 

"She  is  perfectly  ungrateful,  and  I  believe 
she  means  it." 

"Oh,  nonsense!  Lil  hasn't  mind  enough  to 
mean  anything;  and  I'll  tell  you  another  thing: 
in  spite  of  her  quiet  ways,  she  really  has  a  good 
deal  of  worldly  wisdom.  She  knows  what  it  is 
to  those  two  children  to  have  me  interested  in 
them.  Don't  worry  your  little  head — " 

"Oh,  I  don't  worry,"  she  answered.  "If 
she  is  going  to  presume  to  criticise  you,  I  don't 
want  her  under  my  roof;  the  sooner  she  leaves 
the  better!" 

"Spitfire!"  he  told  her,  kissing  her  pretty 
hand,  and  forgetting  all  about  his  sister's  ab- 
surdity, and  the  strike,  and  the  men  and  women 
shivering  in  the  tenements  down  in  the  miserable 
mill  town. 

But  he  remembered  it  all  the  next  morning 
201 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

at  the  breakfast-table,  for  Lydia  Eaton's  white 
face  was  too  striking  to  escape  comment.  Mrs. 
Blair  was  not  present,  preferring  to  be,  at  what 
she  called  the  "brutal  hour  of  eight,"  in  her 
own  room,  with  a  tray  and  her  maid  and  a 
novel. 

"What's  the  matter?"  Mr.  Blair  said,  kindly. 
"Are  you  ill,  Lily?" 

"It's  what  I  told  you  last  night,  Robert," 
she  said,  nervously. 

The  solemn  Samuel,  all  ears,  but  looking  per- 
fectly deaf,  brought  a  dish  to  his  master's  el- 
bow. Robert  Blair  closed  his  lips  with  a  snap. 
Then  he  said: 

"  Please  make  no  reference  to  that  folly  be- 
fore Eleanor." 

But  of  course  it  was  only  a  respite.  The 
folly  had  to  be  repeated  to  Eleanor — discussed, 
argued,  denounced,  until  the  whole  atmosphere 
of  the  house  was  charged  with  excitement. 

Through  it  all  Lydia  Eaton  came  and  went, 
and  did  her  packing. 

"Well,"  her  sister-in-law  said,  contemptuous- 
ly, "perhaps  you'll  tell  me  how  you  mean  to 
feed  Esther  and  Silas?  You  have  a  right  to 
starve  yourself,  and  I  have  no  intention  of  inter- 
fering; but  I  have  some  feeling  for  the  children!" 
202 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

"I  am  going  to  work,"  the  other  answered, 
trembling. 

"Lydia,"  Mrs.  Blair  said,  passionately,  "next 
to  your  ingratitude  to  your  brother,  I  must  say 
your  selfishness  in  ruining  your  own  children 
is  the  most  dreadful  thing  I  ever  heard  of!" 

But  Mrs.  Eaton's  preparations  went  on.  Not 
that  there  was  so  much  to  do;  but  she  had  to 
find  rooms,  and  then  she  had  to  find  work.  It 
was  the  latter  exigency  which  fanned  Robert 
Blair's  contemptuous  annoyance  which  had  re- 
fused to  take  the  matter  seriously,  into  sudden 
flames  of  rage,  for  his  sister  saw  fit  to  apply  at 
a  shop  for  the  position  of  saleswoman.  Of 
course  it  came  to  his  ears,  and  that  night  the 
storm  burst  on  Mrs.  Eaton's  head.  As  for  Rob- 
ert Blair,  when  the  interview  was  over,  during 
which  he  spared  Mrs.  Eaton  no  detail  of  his 
furious  mortification,  he  said,  savagely,  to  his 
wife :  "  I  wish  you'd  go  and  see  if  West  cannot 
bring  her  to  her  senses.  Get  him  to  influence 
her  to  some  decency.  Tell  him,  if  she's  set  on 
this  outrageous  ingratitude,  I  wish  he  would 
persuade  her  to  let  me  send  her  East,  to  some 
other  place,  and  let  her  work  (and  starve!), 
where  she  won't  disgrace  me.  Think  of  it, 
Eleanor — that  man  Davis  coming  whining  and 
14  203 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

grinning,  and  saying  he  '  would  do  what  he  could 
to  give  my  sister  a  position  as  "  saleslady,"  but 
I  knew  the  times  were  bad!'  Damn  him!" 

"Good  Heavens,  Robert!  You  don't  mean 
to  say  she's  been  to  Davis' s?  My  dear,  she  is 
insane!  Yes,  I'll  go  and  see  Mr.  West  to-mor- 
row." 

She  went.  It  was  a  raw,  bleak  morning; 
the  thin,  chill  winter  rain  blurred  the  windows 
of  her  brougham,  and  the  mud  splashed  up 
against  the  glass;  the  wheels  sunk  into  deep 
ruts  of  the  badly  paved  streets,  and  the  un- 
comfortable jolt  and  sway  of  the  softly  padded 
carriage  added  to  her  indignation  at  her  sister- 
in-law. 

William  West  did  not  live  in  the  new  part  of 
Mercer,  with  its  somewhat  gorgeous  houses; 
nor  yet  in  the  old  part,  which  was  charming  and 
dignified,  and  inclined  to  despise  everything 
not  itself;  but  in  the  middle  section,  near  the 
rows  of  rotten  and  tumbling  tenements,  and 
within  a  stone's -throw  of  bleak  and  hideous 
brick  blocks  known  as  "company  boarding- 
houses."  He  had  come  here  to  live  shortly 
after  a  certain  crash  in  his  own  life,  a  personal 
blow  which  left  him  harder  and  more  silent 
and  more  earnest.  He  had  been  jilted,  people 
204 


THE    HOUSE   OF    RIMMON 

said,  and  wondered  why,  for  a  while,  and  then 
forgot  it,  as  he,  absorbed  in  his  work,  seemed 
also  to  forget  it. 

Mrs.  Blair,  her  fox-terrier  under  one  arm, 
stepped  out  of  the  carriage,  frowning  to  find 
herself  in  this  squalid  street;  but  once  inside 
the  big,  plain,  comfortable  house  where  William 
West  lived  all  by  himself,  her  face  relaxed  and 
took  a  certain  arch  and  charming  discontent; 
there  was  a  big  fire  blazing  in  the  minister's 
library,  and  the  dignity  and  refinement  of  the 
room,  the  smell  of  leather-covered  books,  the 
gleam  of  pictures  and  bronzes,  and  a  charming 
bit  of  tapestry  hanging  on  the  chimney-piece 
restored  her  sense  of  mental  as  well  as  physical 
comfort.  When  he  entered,  and  dragged  a  big 
chair  in  front  of  the  fire  for  her,  and  looked  at 
her  with  that  grave  attention  which  seems  like 
homage,  and  was  part  of  the  man,  being  called 
forth  by  his  washerwoman  as  well  as  by  Mrs. 
Robert  Blair,  she  felt  almost  happy  again,  and 
assured  that  everything  would  come  out  right. 

"Mr.  West,"  she  began,  "you've  got  to  help 
us;  we're  in  such  absurd  difficulties!  Will 
you?" 

"Command  me,"  he  said,  smiling. 

"You  haven't  heard,  then?  It's  Lydia — 
205 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Mr.  Blair's  sister,  you  know.  She  has  taken  it 
into  her  head  that" — the  color  came  into  Mrs. 
Blair's  face — "that  she  won't  let  Robert  sup- 
port her,  because  she  thinks  he  isn't  treating 
the  strikers  properly.  I'm  sure  I  don't  know 
what  idea  she  has!  But  she  won't  accept 
his  money.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  such  a 
thing?" 

William  West's  face  sobered  instantly.  "I 
have  not  seen  Mrs.  Eaton  for  a  fortnight,"  he 
said;  "I  had  no  idea — "  He  got  up,  frown- 
ing, the  lines  about  his  lips  perplexed  and 
anxious. 

"  I'm  sure,"  the  pretty  woman  went  on,  grow- 
ing angrier  as  she  spoke,  "  I  don't  care  what  she 
does — I've  lost  all  patience  with  her — but  to 
throw  the  children's  future  away!  And  it's  so 
embarrassing  for  Robert."  Then  she  told  him 
fully  the  whole  situation.  "  She  keeps  saying," 
Mrs.  Blair  ended,  "that  'Mr.  Eaton*  wouldn't 
have  allowed  the  children  to  be  supported  on 
money  that  'wasn't  good.'  Did  you  ever  hear 
such  impertinence?" 

"Ah,  well,"  he  protested,  good-naturedly, 
"I'm  sure  Mrs.  Eaton  does  not  mean  to  be  im- 
pertinent; and  I'm  sure  she  does  appreciate 
her  brother's  kindness.  Only,  she  is  trying  to 
206 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

work  out  a  great  problem  on  an  individual 
basis,  which  is  of  course  very  foolish.  But 
the  dear  little  lady  must  not  be  allowed — 
And  yet — "  He  paused,  frowning  and  per- 
plexed. 

"  But  Mr.  West,  when  she  has  the  assurance 
to  quote  the  Bible  to  her  own  brother — it  seems 
to  me  that's  rather  impertinent  ?  Fancy !  some- 
thing about  'doing  unto  others' — and  'being 
partaker'  if  she  spent  the  money  that  had 
been  'wrung  from  the  strikers.'  Upon  my 
word!  'Wrung!'  As  I  said  to  my  husband, 
'Upon  my  word,  I  never  heard  of  such  a 
thing.'" 

"  Neither  did  I,"  William  West  said,  dryly. 
"We  are  all  of  us  in  the  habit  of  taking  our 
dividends,  and  not  looking  at  the  way  they  are 
earned.  Mrs.  Eaton  is  certainly  unusual." 

"Well,  do  you  think  you  can  influence  her?" 
Mrs.  Blair  insisted.  "I  don't  mean  to  stay 
with  us;  I  don't  think  that  would  be  possible 
or  desirable  now.  But  to  let  Mr.  Blair  give  her 
an  allowance,  so  that  she  can  take  care  of  the 
children.  It  is  positively  wicked  to  think  how 
she  is  ruining  the  children!" 

"  Won't  she  take  any  money  from  your  hus- 
band?" 

207 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"Not  a  cent,  if  you  please!  Not  a  penny. 
She  keeps  saying  that  if  she  can't  feel  that  the 
source  of  the  money  is  all  right,  she  can't  spend 
it."  Mrs.  Blair  cuffed  her  dog  prettily  with  her 
muff,  and  kissed  his  little  sleek  head.  "  Isn't 
she  a  goose,  Pat,  you  darling?" 

"Her  principle  would  turn  the  world  upside 
down,"  the  clergyman  said. 

"That's  just  what  I  say!"  cried  Mrs.  Blair. 

"If  we  all  said  we  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  'blood  of  the  just  person,'  what  would 
become  of  the  railroads  and  the  coal-mines  and 
the  oil  trusts  ?  What  would  become  of  our  div- 
idends from  industrial  stocks  if  we  insisted  on 
knowing  that  the  workmen  were  honestly  paid  ? 
How  could  we  eat  meat  if  we  looked  into  the 
slaughter-house  ?" 

Mrs.  Blair  looked  puzzled. 

"And  she  is  going  to  work  for  her  living?" 
He  was  profoundly  moved.  "Good  Heavens, 
out  of  the  mouths  of  babes !  What  a  primitive 
expression  of  social  responsibility!  But  surely, 
Mrs.  Blair,  we  must  respect  her  honesty?  As 
for  her  judgment,  that's  another  matter." 

Eleanor  Blair's  blank  astonishment  left  her 
speechless  for  a  moment;  then  she  flung  up 
her  head  haughtily. 

208 


THE    HOUSE   OF    RIMMON 

"  Mr.  West,  do  you  mean  to  say—  "  she  began. 

"My  dear  Mrs.  Blair,"  he  said,  quietly,  "I 
mean  to  say  that  little  Mrs.  Eaton,  in  her  sim- 
ple way,  puts  her  ringer  right  on  the  centre  of 
this  whole  miserable  question,  in  which,  directly 
or  indirectly,  we  are  all  involved:  she  has  rec- 
ognized our  complicity.  Of  course  she  is  going 
to  work  the  wrong  way — at  least,  I  suppose  she 
is.  God  knows!  But  what  courage — what 
directness!" 

"Do  I  understand,"  Eleanor  Blair  said,  ris- 
ing, "that  you  approve  of  my  sister-in-law's 
extraordinary  conduct?" 

"I  approve  of  her,"  he  said,  smiling.  "If 
you  ask  me  whether  I  think  she  is  doing  right, 
I  should  say  'Yes,'  because  she  is  acting  upon 
her  conscience.  Is  she  doing  wisely?  No; 
because  civilization  is  compromise.  We  have 
either  got  to  bow  in  the  House  of  Rimmon,  or 
go  and  live  in  the  woods  like  Thoreau  and  eat 
dried  pease.  I'll  tell  her  so,  if  you  want  me  to. 
But  as  for  attempting  to  influence  her,  I  can- 
not do  that.  The  place  whereon  we  stand  is 
holy  ground." 

Mrs.  Blair  picked  up  her  dog  and  set  her 
teeth;   then   with   half -shut   eyes   she   looked 
slightly  beyond  the  clergyman,  and  said: 
209 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"Will  you  be  good  enough  to  have  my  car- 
riage called?" 

VI 

"I  NEVER  would  have  been  brave  enough," 
Mrs.  Eaton  said,  meekly,  to  Mr.  West,  when  the 
dreadful  step  was  actually  taken — "I  never 
could  have  done  it  but  I  knew  Mr.  Eaton  would 
have  wished  it ;  and,  besides,  I  felt  I  was  taking 
the  food  of  those  poor  people." 

"Well,  no,"  he  began,  "that  is  really  not 
reasonable — "  But  he  stopped;  this  timid 
creature  could  not  reason — she  could  only  feel. 
"Fools,"  he  said  to  himself,  as  he  left  her, 
"rush  in  where  the  political  economist  fears  to 
tread.  She  is  a  fool,  poor  little  soul,  but — " 

The  winter  had  passed  heavily  away.  Mrs. 
Eaton  had  succeeded  in  getting  a  place  in  Mr. 
Davis's  shop — "where,"  the  proprietor  used  to 
say,  "having  Robert  Blair's  sister  for  a  sales- 
lady is  money  in  my  pocket!  She's  better  than 
a  ' fire-and- water  bargain  sale.'"  So  she  stood 
behind  a  counter  and  sold  ribbon,  and  was 
stared  at  and  whispered  about.  But  she  had 
very  keen  anxieties  about  food  and  clothes, 
and  the  children's  discontent  lay  like  a  weight 
210 


THE   HOUSE   OF    RIMMON 

upon  the  mother's  heart — which  ached,  too, 
with  the  pain  of  the  second  wrench  from  the 
affection  and  kindness  of  her  family.  Fort- 
unately her  peculiar  logic  did  not  lead  her  to 
reject  the  Baptist  deacon's  money,  which  was 
certainly  much  more  doubtful  than  her  broth- 
er's. By  some  mental  process  of  her  own,  the  fact 
that  she  worked  for  it  seemed  to  make  its  ac- 
ceptance moral.  She  had  no  leisure  now  to 
work  for  Mr.  West ;  but  the  remembrance  of  his 
patience  and  gentleness  always  made  a  little 
pause  of  peace  in  her  heavy  thoughts.  It  was  a 
hard,  bleak  life  for  this  silent  little  creature ;  and 
the  rector  of  St.  James's,  himself  a  silent  soul, 
watched  her  live  it,  and  pondered  many  things. 

The  strike  had  broken  in  February.  The 
men  went  back  to  their  work — defeat,  like  some 
bitter  wind,  blowing  the  flames  of  resentment 
into  fiercer  heat,  which  "next  time"  would 
mean  destroying  victory. 

"  Will  it  be  like  Samson  pulling  down  the 
temple  upon  himself?"  William  West  won- 
dered, depressed  and  hopeless. 

It  was  night — a  summer  night — sweet  and  still 
over  in  the  old-fashioned  part  of  Mercer,  where 
the  fragrance  of  roses  overflowed  the  high  brick 
walls  of  the  gardens.  Here  in  the  mill  district  it 

211 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

was  not  sweet,  and  all  night  long  the  mills  roared 
and  crashed,  and  the  flames  bursting  out  of  vast 
chimneys  flared  and  faded,  and  flared  again. 

William  West  was  alone  in  his  library.  His 
sermon  for  the  next  morning  had  been  finished 
early  in  the  week;  he  had  looked  it  over  the 
last  thing,  and  now  the  manuscript  was  slipped 
into  its  black  leather  cover.  He  sat,  his  head 
on  his  hand,  tapping  with  strong,  restless  fingers 
the  arm  of  his  chair.  The  old  question,  always 
more  or  less  present  in  the  mind  of  this  man,  was 
clamoring  for  an  answer:  How  far  are  we  re- 
sponsible? Through  how  many  hands  must 
dishonest  money,  cruel  money,  mean  money 
pass  to  be  cleansed  ?  Is  it  clean  when  it  comes 
to  me — this  dividend  or  that?  Shall  a  man, 
or  a  railroad,  or  a  trust  deal  iniquitously  with 
one  of  these  little  ones,  and  I  profit  by  it  ?  Shall 
I  trace  my  dollar  to  its  source,  and  find  it  wet 
with  tears  and  blood,  and  reject  it?  Or  shall 
I  decline  to  trace  it,  and  buy  my  bread  in  in- 
nocence? Even  the  chief  priests  refused  the 
thirty  pieces  of  silver!  Am  I  an  accomplice? 
For  that  matter,  is  the  Christian  Church  an 
accomplice?  What  does  it  say  to  the  philan- 
thropy of  thieves?  Priests  used  to  take  toll 
from  the  plunder  of  robbers,  and  say  mass  for 

212 


THE    HOUSE    OF    RIMMON 

their  souls  in  return.     Nowadays — "  I  cover  my 
eyes,  but  I  hold  out  my  hand,"  he  said  to  himself. 

Well— well!  The  Reverend  William  West, 
in  his  way,  was  doubtless  as  great  a  fool  in 
asking  unprofitable  questions  as  was  Lydia 
Eaton.  That  the  existing  order  would  be 
turned  upside  down  by  the  introduction  of  the 
sense  of  personal  responsibility  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  Such  an  introduction  would  be  the  ap- 
plication to  the  complex  egotism  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  of  the  doctrines  of  a  Galilean 
peasant,  who  was  a  communist  and  the  Saviour 
of  the  world.  It  would  be  the  setting  forth  in 
individual  lives  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ, 
the  most  revolutionary  element  that  could 
possibly  be  introduced  into  society.  We  are 
none  of  us  ready  for  that,  though  we  like  to  call 
ourselves  Christians. 

At  least  William  West  was  not  ready ;  he  had 
no  intention  of  making  himself  ridiculous,  no 
matter  if  he  did  ask  himself  unanswerable 
questions;  he  was  not  ready  to  throw  away 
present  opportunities  and  destroy  his  influence. 
Yet,  as  for  Mrs.  Eaton— 

"Talk  about  martyrs!"  he  said  to  himself, 
as  he  sat  there  at  midnight  thinking  of  her,  of 
her  hard  life,  of  her  splendid  foolishness. 
213 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

"  Well,  there  is  one  thing  I  could  do  for  her. 
Why  not?  Good  God,  how  selfish  I  am!  I 
suppose  she  would  think  my  money  was  clean  ? 
Yes,  I  could  at  least  do  that." 

This  was  no  new  thought.  It  had  been  in  his 
mind  more  or  less  for  months.  He  only  faced 
it  that  night  more  strenuously. 

So  it  came  about  that  by-and-by  he  rose,  his 
face  set,  his  mouth  hard.  He  took  a  key  from 
his  watch-chain,  and  opening  a  little  closet  in 
the  side  of  the  chimney,  took  out  a  box.  He 
laid  it  on  the  table,  and  sitting  down  again  in 
his  revolving-chair  he  stared  blankly  ahead  of 
him.  After  a  while  he  opened  it.  .  .  .There  were 
some  letters  in  it,  and  a  picture,  and  a  crumbling 
bunch  of  flowers  that  looked  as  though  they  had 
once  been  pansies;  he  held  them  in  his  hand,  a 
bitter  sort  of  amusement  in  his  eyes.  The  letters 
he  put  aside,  as  though  their  touch  stung  him. 
At  the  photograph  he  looked  long  and  intently. 
Then  he  bent  the  card  over  in  his  hand,  and  it 
broke  across  the  middle.  Hastily  he  gathered 
these  things  together  and  went  over  to  his  fire- 
place. A  fire  had  been  laid  during  the  cold 
spring  rains,  and  the  logs  were  dry  and  dusty. 
At  the  touch  of  a  match,  they  sputtered  and 
broke  into  a  little  roaring  flame.  William  West 
214 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

put  his  handful  of  letters  and  the  flowers  and 
the  picture  gently  down  in  the  midst  of  it,  and 
then  stood  and  watched  them  burn.  When 
there  was  only  a  white  film  left,  on  which  the 
sparks  ran  back,  widening  and  dying,  he  went 
over  to  his  desk,  and  with  a  certain  strong  and 
satisfied  cheerfulness  he  began  to  write: 

"Mr  DEAR  MRS.  EATON, — You  and  I  have  spoken 
more  than  once  of  your  action  in  leaving  your  brother's 
house,  and  you  know,  I  am  sure,  how  profoundly  I 
honor  and  respect  your  courage  in  acting  upon  your 
convictions.  It  is  this  respect  which  I  am  venturing 
to  offer  you  in  asking  you  to  honor  me  by  becoming 
my  wife.  My  sincere  regard  and  appreciation  have 
been  yours  ever  since  I  first  knew  you,  and  if  you  will 
consent  to  make  a  home  for  yourself  and  the  children 
in  my  house,  it  will  be  a  home  for  me,  and  you  know 
what  that  will  be  for  a  lonely  man.  If  you  will  con- 
sent, I  shall  be  always, 

"  Faithfully  yours,  WILLIAM  WEST." 

As  he  folded  the  sheet  of  paper  and  thrust 
it  into  the  envelope  there  was  a  whimsical  look 
in  his  eyes. 

"A  love-letter  I1'  he  said  to  himself;  but  his 
face  was  very  gentle  and  tender. 

However,  the  answer  to  the  letter  was  all 
that  the  most  ardent  lover  could  desire. 
215 


A    BLACK   DROP 


A   BLACK   DROP 

i 

A3  far  back  as  Lily's  memory  went,  there 
was  always  Mammy  —  Mammy,  with  soft, 
humorous  black  eyes  behind  silver-rimmed  spec- 
tacles; with  satin -smooth  black  hair  falling 
in  waves  over  ears  in  which  two  gold  loops 
swung  and  glittered  and  invited  Lily's  in- 
vestigating little  white  hands;  Mammy,  big, 
cushiony,  autocratic.  Mammy  was  married, 
but  Lily  thought  she  could  remember  a  time 
when  Augustus  had  not  existed.  In  those 
days  it  had  been  just  Mammy  Lacey  and  Lily 
Feare.  Then  Augustus  had  come,  and  Lily 
had  not  liked  him — one  of  the  first  things  she 
remembered  was  not  liking  Augustus.  Yet, 
except  that  he  had  a  furtive  eye  that  "saw 
things,"  there  was  no  apparent  reason  why  she 
should  not  like  him.  When  he  referred,  in  an 
uneasy  whisper,  to  the  things  he  "saw,"  Lily 
used  to  shrink  close  to  the  starched  shelter  of 
is  219 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Mammy's  petticoats,  and  Mammy,  cuddling  her, 
would  vociferate,  angrily: 

"  Don'  yo'  talk  that  a'  way — scaring  the  chile 
with  yo'  spooks!" 

Such  references,  and  his  way  of  teasing 
Mammy  to  know  the  size  of  her  bank-account, 
were  all  that  justified  Lily's  dislike  of  Augustus. 
He  was  not  so  light  in  color  as  his  wife,  but  he 
was  certainly  ten  years  younger,  and  he  wore 
beautiful  clothes.  To  be  sure,  when  Mammy 
sighed  over  their  cost,  he  snarled,  and  said  she 
wanted  to  spend  all  their  money  on  that  make- 
believe  white  chile!  "Yo'd  spend  ev'y  cent 
on  that  Lily,  'cause  she's  got  straight  hair — 
yah!"  said  Augustus,  disgustedly;  but  he  was 
never  unkind  to  the  little  girl  herself.  He  knew 
better.  That  big,  powerful  brown  arm  would 
"'a'  whopped  his  haid  off  en  him"  if  he  had 
tried  any  of  his  "nigger  monkey-shines"  on 
Lily.  This  warning  had  been  conveyed  to  him 
in, terms  which  left  nothing  to  the  imagination. 
When  he  was  co'tin'  Miss  Lacey  (always  re- 
grettably uncommunicative  about  her  bank- 
account),  his  future  attitude  to  the  child  was 
quite  clearly,  if  a  little  coyly,  defined.  "Oh, 
go  'long,  Mistah  Fostah!  Yo'  ain't  got  no  arm 
long  enough  to  go  roun'  my  wais'.  Well,  there; 
220 


A   BLACK   DROP 

that  satisfy  yo'?  How  much  money  I  got  in 
the  bank?  Dollar,  maybe.  Yere!  Don't  yo' 
push  Lily  often  my  lap !  Lily's  got  fust  rights 
in  this  yere  house,  ev'y  time." 

Augustus  murmured  his  apologies.  "Whose 
chile  is  she,  anyway?"  he  asked. 

"None  yo'  business,"  Miss  Lacey  replied, 
cheerfully. 

"Is  she  white?" 

"Look  at  her,"  Miss  Lacey  said. 

"I  seen  'em  as  white  as  that,"  Augustus  de- 
murred. 

"Don't  say!" 

"But  who  was  her  father  and  mother?" 
Augustus  insisted,  wheedlingly,  and  Miss  Lacey 
was  briefly  explicit:  "Fren's  o'  mine." 

Then  she  added,  sternly :  "  Look  a  yere,  Mistah 
Fostah,  yo'  jus'  put  yo'  mind  on  one  thing 
'fore  we  git  married,  and  yo'  jus*  study  on  it. 
Lily,  she  come  fust  in  this  yere  house.  But 
I'll  treat  yo'  good,  'Gustus,"  she  melted;  for, 
indeed,  Miss  Lacey  was  getting  on  in  years,  and 
Mr.  Augustus  Foster  was  a  real  pretty  man  and 
would  look  well  if  he  was  anyways  dressed  up. 
Miss  Lacey,  regarding  him,  longed  to  dress  him 
up.  She  began  as  soon  as  they  were  married, 
and  Augustus  took  so  readily  to  the  dressing-up 
221 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

process  that  he  forgot  his  curiosity  about  Lily, 
and  except  when  Mammy  chose  to  buy  lace  for 
the  child's  petticoats  instead  of  something  for 
his  wardrobe,  he  did  not  ask  any  questions 
about  her.  Augustus's  love  of  fine  clothes  was 
a  distinct  drain  upon  that  secret  bank-account. 
Then,  suddenly,  the  drain  ceased:  about  the 
time  Lily  was  seven  years  old,  Augustus  went 
away  from  home  for  three  years.  Mammy 
never  told  Lily  where  he  went,  though  she  ex- 
plained that  he  didn't  come  home  because  they 
"kep'  the  do'  locked  where  he  was  a  stayin'." 
She  moved  immediately  to  the  negro  quarter 
of  the  town,  which  before  she  had  frankly 
despised,  and  she  told  new  and  inquiring  neigh- 
bors a  rather  elaborate  story  about  "Mistah 
Fostah's  business  'bliging  him  to  live  out  Wes'." 
She  did  not  go  into  particulars  concerning  the 
"business,"  and  people  rarely  pressed  for  in- 
formation. There  was  a  background  of  secre- 
tiveness  in  Mammy's  volubility  which  did  not 
invite  questions.  But  Lily,  at  any  rate,  knew 
that  the  "locked  door"  was  not  far  away, 
because  once  a  month  there  was  a  busy  time 
of  "gittin'  that  basket  packed  for  'Gustus — 
But  mind  yo'  don't  tell  nobody  who  it's 
for,"  Mammy  always  charged  her;  "if  any- 
222 


A   BLACK    DROP 

body  asks  yo',  yo'  jus'  say  it's  for  an  orphum 
'sylum." 

"But,  Mammy,  it's  for  'Gustus." 

"Now,  Lily,  yo'  keep  yo'  liT  mouf  shut, 
honey!  Go's'  yo'  must  be  a  truthful  chile; 
but  yo'  know  Mammy  is  always  kind  to  or- 
phums.  Now  eat  yo'  apple  and  don'  talk." 

On  the  first  of  the  month,  when  Mammy  took 
the  basket  to  the  "orphum  'sylum,"  she  would 
be  away  all  day;  when  she  got  home  in  the 
evening  she  would  cry  and  say:  "Po'  'Gustus! 
Well,  he  always  was  a  no  -  'count  nigger." 
Often,  in  her  sympathy,  she  added:  "I'm  right 
glad  he  gits  some  comfort  out  of  his  spooks,  any- 
how." But  towards  the  end  of  Augustus's  in- 
carceration, Mammy  was  less  pleased  with  his 
ghostly  comforters.  "  He  say  there's  a  woman 
called  'Sarah'  comes  and  talks  to  him.  She 
must  be  a  po'  sort,  talkin'  to  a  married  man! 
No  lady  'd  do  it." 

When  'Gustus  came  back  from  that  three 
years'  absence,  he  asked  no  more  questions 
about  Lily;  perhaps  they  were  unnecessary, 
because  a  sympathetic  wife  may  have  been 
more  communicative  than  a  sweetheart;  or 
perhaps  the  question  of  how  he  could  tease  a 
dollar  out  of  Mammy  for  a  stance  interested 
223 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

him  more  than  did  Lily's  parentage.  At  that 
time  Augustus  "saw"  a  great  many  things; 
his  dense  black  eye  was  more  furtive  than  ever, 
and  he  had  a  way  of  speaking  suddenly  in  an 
undertone  to  some  unseen  companion.  This 
habit  was  most  disconcerting  to  Lily  and  irri- 
tating to  Mammy,  who  believed  that  he  was  ad- 
dressing "Sarah."  "  Yo'  spook  ain't  no  lady," 
she  would  declare,  sullenly. 

Her  sympathy  for  Augustus's  recent  hard- 
ships subsided  before  this  jealousy  of  "Sarah," 
which,  however,  was  always  decently  disguised 
as  contempt.  "  I  wouldn't  care  for  no  woman 
that  didn't  have  bones  in  her ;  I  could  set  down 
on  yo'  lady  fren'  and  I'd  not  know  it." 

"She'd  know  it,"  said  Augustus,  dryly.  But 
Mammy  did  not  consider  the  implied  reference 
to  her  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  unflat- 
tering. 

Lily  was  ten  years  old  when  Augustus  came 
home,  and  by  that  time  he  was  not  the  only 
person  who  had  asked  questions  about  her.  .  .  . 
She  was  very  pretty,  with  a  complexion  like 
the  flushed  petal  of  a  white  rose,  and  such  a 
child,  playing  with  darky  children  on  Nigger 
Hill,  made  both  races  ask  questions.  Black 
mothers  said,  jealously,  that  they'd  think  Mis' 
224 


A   BLACK    DROP 

Fostah  'd  be  'shamed;  "any  cullud  lady  'd  be 
'shamed  to  have  a  chile  like  that  'round," 
these  matrons  told  each  other.  White  mothers 
(there  were  white  mothers  on  Mammy's  street) 
said  they  bet  that  child  was  a  freak.  The 
white  postman  wondered;  the  white  ashman 
hinted  at  kidnapping;  the  white  policeman  felt 
it  his  duty,  as  a  representative  of  law,  to  ask 
whose  child  she  was? 

"Don'  ask  me"  Augustus  protested,  airly. 
"M'  wife  say  she's  a  rearin'  of  her,  'cause  she 
was  a  fren'  of  her  pa  and  ma.  But  don'  ask 
me!" 

Mammy  was  hardly  more  communicative. 
"Yo'  mind  yo'  business!  Ain't  I  got  a  right 
to  bring  up  a  chile,  I  don't  care  what  color  she 
is?  White?  Well,  look  at  her.  Go's'  she's 
white.  I  took  her  often  her  dead  mother's 
breas',  and  she  was  white  as  skim-milk." 

By-and-by  Lily  herself  asked  questions,  and 
then  Mammy  was  reluctantly  explicit.  "Yo' 
mother  die  when  yo'  was  born,  and  yo'  father, 
he  die  a  HT  while  after.  Yas,  yo'  mother  looked 
just  like  yo' — white  as  a  lily,  I  always  said. 
An'  yo'  father,  too.  When  he  come  to  die,  yo' 
father  asked  me  if  I'd  keep  yo'.  Go's'  I  said  I 
would;  they  was  fren's  of  mine,  if  they  was 
225 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

white.  Yas;  they's  daid;  both  of  'em.  Yo' 
father  an'  yo'  mother.  They  was  white  people. 
There!  I've  tole  yo'.  Now  don't  say  no  mo' 
about  it." 

When  Mammy  said  this  before  Augustus,  he 
looked  behind  him  and  winked. 

But  Mammy  was  always  irritated  when  Lily 
asked  about  her  parents.  And  her  irritation 
cut  both  ways,  for  while  she  resented  Lily's 
satisfaction  in  being  white,  she  resented  more 
fiercely  still  any  outsider's  belief  that  she 
was  black.  "Them  chillun  say  yo's  a  nigger? 
Yo'  tell  'em  to  look  at  yo' !  Tell  'em  I'll  knock 
they  haids  offen  'em  if  they  come  'roun'  with 
such  fool  talk!" 

"Yes,  but  Mammy,  the  chillun  say  you  is 
my  mammy." 

"Go  long  with  yo',  Lily!  I  tol'  yo'  long 
ago,  yo'  mother's  daid." 

"Was  she  white?" 

"  Go's' she  was  white.  Lily-white.  Yo' both- 
er me  to  death!" 

Before  she  was  twelve,  Lily  had  learned  that 
this  was  the  one  subject  in  the  world  on  which 
it  was  best  not  to  speak  to  Mammy.  The  big, 
humorous,  brown  presence  could  grow  dark  and 
thunderous  as  an  August  day  if  that  dead  father 
226 


A   BLACK    DROP 

and  mother  were  referred  to.  But  Lily  did  not 
often  refer  to  them.  Sentimental  tradition  to 
the  contrary,  Lily,  like  most  orphan  children, 
was  not  particularly  interested  in  parents  whom 
she  could  not  remember;  granting  that  she 
could  tell  teasing,  tormenting  playmates  that 
they  had  been  white,  she  did  not  greatly  con- 
cern herself  about  them.  Sometimes  in  answer 
to  the  gibe,  "White  nigger,"  from  some  detest- 
able brat,  as  often  black  as  white,  she  would 
retort  with  an  assertion  of  her  parentage,  and 
then  run  crying  home  to  Mammy  for  comfort. 
And  Mammy,  always  furious  at  the  insult,  was 
always  angry,  somehow,  with  Lily  herself. 

"He  say  yo'  live  with  col'ed  people?  Well, 
they's  as  good  as  him — po'  white  trash!  And 
ain't  they  kind  to  yo'?  What  do  yo'  want, 
anyhow?  If  I'd  had  a  white  skin,  could  I  'a' 
done  mo'  for  yo',  Lily?" 

As  Lily  grew  older,  she  knew  that  no  one 
could  have  done  more.  Mammy's  love  wrap- 
ped her  in  what,  for  their  circumstances,  was 
positive  luxury.  Lily's  desire  to  have  music 
lessons  was  met  by  extra  laundry  work;  a 
wish  for  a  piano  was  satisfied  by  the  same 
means;  the  girl's  love  of  pretty  clothes  was  so 
entirely  Mrs.  Foster's  own  passion  that  Lily 
227 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

did  not  even  have  to  ask  for  them;  and  her  soft 
indolence  found  no  rebuff  in  Mammy's  readi- 
ness to  wait  on  her.  The  only  thing  this  idoliz- 
ing love  could  not  supply  was  companionship. 
Lily  had  no  friends  on  Nigger  Hill.  Mammy 
had  not  permitted  any  intimacies  with  the 
young  colored  people  of  the  neighborhood, 
though  Lily,  when  she  was  a  child,  would  have 
accepted  them  readily  enough ;  but  Mrs.  Foster 
said  she  wasn't  agoin'  to  have  Lily  "mixin' 
with  no  col'ed  trash."  There  were  white  peo- 
ple on  Nigger  Hill,  but  Lily  had  been  bidden  not 
even  to  look  at  them.  "They  ain't  fit  to  look 
at  or  they  wouldn't  be  yere ;  I'll  whop  yo'  HT 
head  off,  honey,  if  you  speak  to  one  of  'em," 
Mammy  told  her,  earnestly.  Thus,  from  lack 
of  opportunity,  the  child  made  no  friends  among 
white  people;  by-and-by,  when  opportunity 
offered,  she  did  not  take  it,  for,  as  she  grew 
older,  she  began  to  realize  the  anomaly  of  her 
position,  and  to  feel,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that 
white  people  doubted  her  white  skin.  This 
made  her  at  once  more  sensitive  and  more 
secretive.  When  she  was  wounded  she  no 
longer  ran  home  to  cry  on  Mammy's  breast. 
She  kept  poignant  innuendos  to  herself;  but 
she  recoiled  from  circumstances  in  which  such 
228 


A   BLACK    DROP 

innunendos  might  be  made.  That  was  why, 
at  school,  she  made  no  friends  among  her  own 
race.  The  girls  in  her  class  apparently  accepted 
her  as  one  of  themselves,  but  Lily  was  per- 
fectly aware  that,  in  spite  of  their  easy  intimacy, 
they  speculated  about  her:  "Why,  she's  just 
as  fair  as  we  are!"  "Yes;  but  my  father  says 
he's  seen  them  perfectly  white."  "But  look 
at  her  hair!  it's  as  straight  as  mine."  .  .  .  Lily 
felt  these  furtive  guesses,  even  if  she  did  not 
hear  them,  and  she  knew  that  even  her  teachers 
wondered  a  little.  .  .  .  Miss  Wales,  an  elderly 
New  England  woman,  who  had  come  to  Mercer 
many  years  before  to  teach  mathematics  in 
the  Girls'  High  School,  asked  her  point-blank 
as  to  her  birth.  Lily  told  her  briefly  all  she 
knew:  her  father  and  mother  had  been  white 
people;  when  they  died  Mammy  had  taken 
her  and  given  her  a  home.  "She's  treated 
me  just  like  I  was  her  own  chile,"  Lily  said, 
gently. 

" '  Child,' "  said  Miss  Wales ;  and  immediately 
set  public  opinion  right  as  to  the  girl's  race. 
But  she  used  to  watch  her  with  kind,  puzzled 
eyes,  into  which,  by-and-by,  Lily  began  to  look 
for  sympathy  and  understanding.  Thus  it  was, 
when  she  was  almost  seventeen,  that  Lily  felt 

229 


R.  J.'S  MOTHER 

she  had  a  friend — a  friend  whom  she  could  go  to 
see,  and  who  would  occasionally  come  to  see  her. 

She  was  out  when  Miss  Wales  made  her  first 
call  at  the  story-and-a-half  frame  house,  lop- 
sided and  crumbling  to  decay  on  one  of  Mercer's 
narrow,  dirty  streets.  Mammy,  in  the  little 
crowded  parlor,  where  Lily's  piano  blocked  the 
front  window,  received  her  visitor  with  the 
beautiful  courtesy  of  her  race. 

"Set  down,  ma'am,"  she  said,  beaming  be- 
nignantly  through  her  silver-rimmed  specta- 
cles; "well,  now,  I  suttinly  am  glad  to  see  yo'. 
An'  I'm  glad  Lily's  got  some  fren's  beside  me 
and  'Gustus;  specially  as  my  health  ain't  right 
strong." 

"Is  Mr.  Foster  fond  of  Lily,  too?" 

"I  reckon  he  know  he  bettah  be!  Oh  yes; 
he's  good  to  Lily;  but  he's  got  things  on  his 
mind.  Spirits,  ma'am.  Spooks,  I  call  'em.  He 
has  one — her  name's  'Sarah.'  Go's'  he's  wel- 
come!" Mammy's  plush  patent  rocker  creaked 
with  her  jealous  rocking.  "  But  I'm  acquainted 
with  manners,  ma'am;  my  folks  was  quality; 
an'  I  don'  like  to  have  a  married  man  talkin* 
befo'  Lily  of  his  lady  fren'." 

Miss  Wales's  sympathy  might  have  ventured 
into  the  maze  of  spiritual  improprieties,  but  at 
230 


A    BLACK   DROP 

that  moment  Augustus,  beautifully  dressed,  slid 
hesitatingly  into  the  room.  He  gave  a  furtive 
look  behind  him,  as  though  sharing  with  some 
unseen  presence  his  excitement  at  a  white  vis- 
itor; but  he  acknowledged  Mammy's  introduc- 
tion with  a  deep  bow  and  a  polite  reference  to 
Lily. 

"She's  a  good  girl;  her  mammy  and  me's 
done  th'  bes'  we  could  for  her.  Go's'  she  ain't 
my  chile;  but  I'm  jus'  as  kin'  to  her  as  ef  she 
was." 

On  the  door-step,  as  she  was  going  away,  Miss 
Wales  met  Lily,  who  blushed  with  pleasure  at 
finding  her  teacher  here,  in  her  own  home. 
"Come  and  see  me  sometime,"  Miss  Wales  said, 
cordially.  "No,  no!  I  don't  mean  at  school. 
Come  to  my  house  some  afternoon  at  five.  My 
tea-kettle  always  boils  then,  and  we  can  talk 
of  something  else  than  the  square  of  the  hy- 
pothenuse!" 

Lily  did  not  understand  the  reference  to  the 
tea-kettle,  but  she  went,  in  her  prettiest  dress, 
and  learned  about  tea-kettles,  and  by-and-by 
she  learned  many  other  things.  Indeed,  in  the 
next  year,  she  so  quickly  adapted  herself  to  the 
externals  of  refinement  that  once  in  a  while 
Miss  Wales  had  misgivings.  .  .  .  After  all,  con- 
231 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

sidering  how  she  must  live,  was  it  for  the  girl's 
happiness  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  aesthetic  knowl- 
edge? But  that  was  the  winter  that  Mammy 
began  to  fail,  and  in  her  sympathy  with  the 
incongruous  and  anxious  household,  not  even 
Miss  Wales's  conscientiousness  could  snub  the 
dog-like  love  which  looked  at  her  out  of  Lily's 
soft,  melancholy  eyes.  The  silent  young  creat- 
ure came  very  often  to  that  pleasant  tea-table. 
And  gradually  she  began  to  carry  her  head 
as  Miss  Wales  carried  hers;  she  walked  as  the 
older  woman  walked;  she  spoke  with  inflec- 
tions characteristic  of  her  teacher's  extremely 
cultivated  voice,  but  with  a  certain  soft  note 
that  was  all  her  own.  It  came  so  gradually 
that  Miss  Wales  herself  did  not  recognize  the 
"sincerest  flattery";  and  Lily  was  perfectly 
unaware  of  it.  But  it  was  about  that  time 
that  she  began  to  have  moments  of  acute  race 
consciousness.  She  began  to  think  of  Mammy's 
and  'Gustus's  friends  as  negroes,  not  merely 
as  neighbors  that  she  did  not  know  very  well; 
she  began  to  say  to  herself,  constantly,  that 
she  was  white  and  Mammy  was  black.  Some- 
times a  horror  of  the  blackness  about  her 
seized  her  like  some  dark  hand  tightening  on 
her  white  throat;  then  she  would  ask  herself, 
232 


A   BLACK    DROP 

frantically,  what  she  should  do  to  get  out  into 
white  life?  But  these  acute  moments  were 
not  frequent.  Mammy's  love  was  such  a  warm 
shelter  from  facts  that  for  the  most  part  this 
new  consciousness  was  only  the  peculiar  mel- 
ancholy which  is  rooted  in  the  knowledge  of 
being  out  of  place.  This  melancholy,  and  the 
refinement — which  was  none  the  less  genuine 
because  imitative — and,  of  course,  her  exquisite 
fairness,  made  Lily  very  noticeably  out  of  place 
on  Baker  Street.  Indeed,  by  the  time  she  was 
nineteen,  she  was  a  noticeable  presence  any- 
where— graceful,  sad,  and  extraordinarily  pretty. 
Framely  Stone,  a  budding  lawyer,  and  a  new- 
comer in  Mercer,  whose  mind  should  have  been 
occupied  with  the  briefs  that  did  not  come, 
found  her  distinctly  noticeable  when  he  met 
her  one  afternoon  at  Miss  Wales's.  Young 
Framely  had  gone,  like  the  good  boy  he  was, 
to  have  a  cup  of  tea  with  his  old  Sunday- 
school  teacher.  And  here,  at  the  piano,  play- 
ing softly  in  the  dusk,  was  this  silent  creature 
in  a  purple  dress,  whose  voice,  when  she  said 
"  good-evening,"  had  a  liquid  note  that  charmed 
the  young  Yankee,  transplanted  for  business 
reasons  to  this  noisy,  dirty,  Middle- West  town. 
When  Lily,  saying  she  must  go,  rose  from  the 
233 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

piano-stool  with  a  slow,  indolent  movement,  full 
of  grace,  Framely  saw  her  to  the  door,  and 
then  came  back  to  demand  information. 

"She's  a  peach!"  he  said,  being  of  that  gen- 
eration which  has  such  strange  taste  in  ad- 
jectives. 

"Yes,  she's  pretty,  I  suppose,"  said  Miss 
Wales,  sighing;  "and  she's  white." 

"  White  ?"  repeated  the  young  fellow.  "  What 
do  you  mean?  Of  course  she  is  white!" 

When  she  told  him  what  she  meant  he 
was  explosively  sympathetic.  "How  perfectly 
dreadful!  Living  entirely  among  colored  peo- 
ple! Not  that  they  are  not  all  right;  I  am  of 
good  old  abolition  stock,  as  you  know,  and  color 
doesn't  make  a  particle  of  difference  to  me. 
Only,  it  must  be  fiendishly  lonely  for  her.  I 
suppose  they  are  servants,  in  a  way?" 

"Oh,  not  in  the  least;  she  is  like  their  own 
child.  She  eats  with  them,  and  all  that.  That's 
one  reason,  I  suppose,  why  she  doesn't  make 
friends  at  school.  White  girls  don't  go  to  see 
her  at  her  own  house,  you  know." 

"  I  don't  know  anything  of  the  sort,"  the  boy 
retorted.  "I'd  go  and  see  her,  darned  quick!" 

And  Miss  Wales,  caressing  a  very  ill-tem- 
pered fox  terrier  who  lounged  condescendingly 
234 


A   BLACK   DROP 

against  her  knee,  looked  at  him  over  her  glasses 
and  said  to  herself:  "Not  if  I  could  prevent  it, 
my  young  friend."  Aloud  she  explained  that 
about  a  fortnight  ago  Mrs.  Foster,  whose  health 
had  been  gradually  failing,  had  become  so  seri- 
ously ill  that  Lily  was  obliged  to  stay  at  home 
and  nurse  her;  she  had  called  that  afternoon 
to  say  that  she  was  still  unable  to  return  to 
school. 

"I  made  her  stop  and  play  for  me  a  little 
while,"  Miss  Wales  ended;  "she  loves  music 
as  much  as  she  hates  mathematics.  Poor 
child!  If  she  loses  time  now,  it  means  not 
graduating." 

"  She  has  a  lovely  complexion,"  said  the  young 
lawyer.  And  Miss  Wales  said,  impatiently, 
that  she  was  not  interested  in  Lily's  complex- 
ion, but  in  her  geometry. 

"  It  was  all  I  could  do  to  pull  her  along,  any- 
how ;  I  know  she  thought  it  very  arbitrary  that 
two  and  two  should  make  four!  Poor  Lily,  she 
is  so  refined  and  pretty,  I  often  wonder  what 
will  become  of  her!  I  wish  she  would  marry 
some  nice  young  clerk;  but  respectable  white 
men  don't  frequent  Nigger  Hill,  and  she  can't 
marry  a  col — " 

"Oh,  Lord,  no!"  Stone  broke  in,  disgusted- 

16  235 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

ly.  "  Of  course,  my  grandfather  was  a  roaring 
old  abolitionist,  and  I've  been  brought  up  on 
the  finest  kind  of  theories;  but  I  don't  stand 
for—" 

"No,"  said  Miss  Wales,  dryly,  "of  course 
you  don't.  Nobody  does,  Frame,  of  the  su- 
perior race,  no  matter  what  their  theories  are. 
Your  grandfather's  were  fine,  but  he  would 
have  had  cold  shivers  up  and  down  his  back 
at  the  idea  of  a  white  girl  marrying  a  darky." 

"The  idea  is  infinitely  shocking  to  me,"  Stone 
said,  frowning.  "I  don't  know  just  why,  but 
it  is." 

"I  know  why,"  Miss  Wales  said,  curtly;  "it 
is  something  bigger  than  you,  Frame;  bigger 
than  your  reason;  bigger  than  your  theories; 
it  is  instinct.  The  white  man  who  marries  a 
negro  pushes  his  race  back;  and  if  he  doesn't 
feel  the  repulsion  of  it,  there  is  something  wrong 
with  him!  Your  disgust  is  just  a  race  protest, 
a  race  horror.  It  is  organic,  its  biological;  it 
has  nothing  to  do  with  reason.  The  finest  kind 
of  theories  tumble  down  before  it!" 

Stone  nodded.     "Yes,"  he  said,  "when  you 

put  a  theory  against   instinct,   you  are  just 

bucking  the   universe.     Queer,  isn't  it?     And 

those  fine  old  birds,  the  abolitionists,  never  took 

236 


A    BLACK    DROP 

that  into  account!  And  yet,  you  know,  that 
absurd  question  the  Southerner  always  asks, 
'Would  you  want  your  daughter  to  marry  a 
nigger  ?'  is  rooted  right  in  that  very  thing.  But 
any  such  idea  in  relation  to  Miss  Feare  is  hide- 
ous! It  doesn't  come  into  consideration  at  all. 
What  does  interest  me  is  that  she  should  be  a 
— a  lady,  don't  you  know?  After  all,  a  girl, 
even  of  birth  (as  Miss  Feare  plainly  is),  dees 
get  something  from  her  bringing  up,  and  Miss 
Feare  has  only  had  this  old  colored  woman, 
and—" 

Miss  Wales  laughed.  "My  dear  boy,  how 
young  you  are!  In  the  first  place,  there  is  no 
reason  to  think  that  she  is  a  girl  of  'birth,'  as 
you  call  it.  And  in  the  next  place  a  nice  old 
colored  woman  like  Mrs.  Foster  has  far  better 
manners  than  many  white  people.  No;  please 
don't  be  expecting  that  poor  Lily  has  a  straw- 
berry-mark on  her  left  arm,  for  I  assure  you  she 
has  not." 

"Well,  anyway,  she's  a  peach,"  said  Framely 
Stone. 

II 

IT  was  a  day  or  two  after  this  meeting  in 
Miss  Wales's  parlor  that  Mammy  was  suddenly 
23? 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

felled  by  a  stroke  of  paralysis.  She  crashed 
down  in  her  tracks  without  an  instant's  warn- 
ing, and  Augustus  in  his  terror  fled  into  the 
street,  calling  loudly  for  help — which  instantly 
swarmed  out  of  all  'the  dingy  doorways,  scared 
and  eager  and  kind.  All  that  day  the  little 
house  on  Baker  Street  was  crowded  with  black 
faces  that  peered  in  upon  Mammy  as  she  lay 
prisoned  in  silence.  At  first  the  prying  curi- 
osity was  mixed  with  fright;  but  by-and-by 
as  awe  wore  off,  open,  child-like  pleasure  in  a 
morbid  situation  brought  the  friendly  creatures 
trooping  into  the  room ;  they  sat  about  all  day, 
chattering  to  each  other  or  murmuring  con- 
dolences to  Augustus,  while  Mammy,  deep  in 
her  feather-bed,  covered  with  a  red-and-white 
patchwork  quilt,  lay  like  a  stone.  There  was 
not  a  quiver  of  recognition,  even  when  Lily 
bent  over  her  or  washed  the  motionless  face 
and  leaden  hands.  "But  I'm  sure  she  knows 
me,"  Lily  insisted.  And  the  crowding  women 
sympathized,  and  then  burst  into  noisy  talk. 
Sometimes  there  was  an  ejaculatory  prayer; 
sometimes  a  cadenced  outburst  of  singing; 
sometimes  vociferating  advice ;  sometimes,  even, 
loud  gurgles  of  laughter;  but  always  kindness. 
Lily,  moving  among  them,  dazzlingly  white 
238 


A   BLACK    DROP 

against  their  blackness,  found  the  kindness 
comforting,  the  curiosity  natural.  Her  sense 
of  difference  vanished  in  anxiety  and  grief; 
disaster  instantly  knitted  her  to  these  good 
friends,  who  were  so  ready  to  help  Mammy. 

That  night  there  were  a  dozen  offers  to  "sit 
up."  But  Augustus  refused  them  all.  "lean 
look  after  her,"  he  said,  irritably.  Now  that 
his  terror  was  over,  he  was  eager  to  dispense 
with  the  help  he  had  summoned,  and  when, 
assisted  by  his  impatience,  the  visitors  took 
their  reluctant  departure,  and  he  and  Lily  sat 
in  the  faintly  lighted  room  listening  to  the 
dreadful  breathing,  his  reason  for  wishing  to 
be  alone  was  apparent:  it  was  his  opportunity 
to  find  Mammy's  bank-book!  Whispering  con- 
stantly to  some  one  who  stood,  unseen,  beside 
him,  he  began  the  search.  .  .  .  Every  bureau 
drawer,  every  crevice  in  the  closet,  every  box, 
every  trunk.  Then  he  got  down  on  his  hands 
and  knees  and  felt  under  the  carpet.  Once  he 
even  thrust  a  shrinking  hand  under  Mammy's 
mattress,  and  once  he  clawed  with  lean,  brown 
fingers  at  the  bricks  on  the  hearth.  "  Ef  yo'd 
tell  me  where  it  is,"  he  whispered,  angrily,  to 
Lily,  "I  wouldn't  be  wastin'  my  time." 

"But  I  don't  know,"  she  whispered  back. 
239 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"  Oh,  I  wish  you  wouldn't  look  for  it.  'Gustus, 
please  don't!" 

She  felt  him  brush  against  her  as,  on  hands 
and  knees,  he  crawled  about  the  room,  tapping 
the  surbase  and  talking  rapidly  in  a  whisper 
to  "Sarah."  On  all-fours,  panting  heavily,  he 
looked  in  the  half-light  like  some  sinister  ani- 
mal. Towards  morning  he  gave  it  up.  "  Them 
women  can  watch  to-night,  if  they  want  to," 
he  said,  sullenly;  "it  ain't  in  this  yere  room, 
anyhow." 

All  that  first  week  he  searched  the  rest  of  the 
house  and  teased  Lily.  "'Sarah'  tole  me  to 
take  care  of  the  book,  fear  it  might  get  los'.  I 
guess  Mammy  lef  it  at  the  bank.  So  now 
yo'  tell  me  her  bank,  Lily,  that's  a  good 
girl." 

"I  don't  know,  'Gustus,"  Lily  would  say, 
over  and  over. 

"Well,  now,  honey,  ef  yo'  tell  me,  I'll  tell 
yo'  something  'Sarah'  tole  me  'bout  yo'  pa!" 

And  Lily  would  shake  her  head,  smiling. 
"'Gustus,  truly  I  don't  know.  What  did 
'Sarah1  say  about  my  father?" 

The  dark  face  opposite  her  grimaced  angrily. 
"I  bet  yo'  know  where  it  is!  Well,  yo'  pa's 
in  the  spirit  world,  but  he  ain't  in  the  same 
240 


A   BLACK   DROP 

sphere  as  'Sarah.'  'Sarah'  was  a  very  godly 
lady  in  the  mortal  life." 

"What  did  she  say  about  him?" 

"She  said  he  was  white.  An'  rich.  He 
wasn't  no  po'  white  trash,  I'll  say  that  for 
him.  Well,  he  say:  'Tell  Lily  to  meet  me  in 
heaven." 

Lily  looked  at  him  eagerly.  "Did  'Sarah' 
say  anything  about  my  mother,  'Gustus  ?  Oh, 
I  would  like  to  know  something  about  my 
mother." 

Augustus,  glancing  over  his  shoulder,  chuc- 
kled: "Hi,  'Sarah' I"  he  said,  softly,  "do  yo' 
hear  that?" 

Since  that  Thursday  afternoon  when  Mr. 
Framely  Stone  dropped  in  to  have  a  cup  of  tea 
with  Miss  Wales,  Lily  had  thought  constantly 
of  that  dead  father  and  mother;  she  thought 
of  them  even  while  she  watched,  frightened 
and  grieving,  by  Mammy's  bedside  in  the  little, 
hot,  musky  room  crowded  with  kind  black 
faces.  .  . .  Oh,  if  they  had  only  lived!  She  was 
angry  at  them  because  they  had  not  lived ;  she 
had  a  resentful  feeling  that  Mammy  —  poor, 
speechless  Mammy,  a  colored  woman,  had  been 
better  to  her  than  her  own  father  and  mother! 
241 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

"Why  did  they  go  and  die  and  leave  me?"  she 
said  to  herself,  passionately. 

That  half -hour  of  sitting  silently  at  the  piano, 
listening  to  Stone  and  his  old  teacher,  had  been 
a  bleak  revelation  of  how  entirely  she  had 
lost  her  birthright.  Her  life — at  any  rate,  as 
long  as  Mammy  lived — must  always  be  as  it  had 
been,  for  she  could  never  leave  Mammy — Mam- 
my, who  had  taken  her  in  and  given  her  a  home! 
It  would  break  Mammy's  heart.  No;  she,  a 
white  girl,  must  live  among  black  people! 
"  Perhaps  I'll  get  black,  too,"  she  thought,  in  a 
surge  of  childish  terror.  For  very  relief  from 
such  thoughts  she  took  shelter  in  the  memory 
of  that  wonderful  half -hour  at  Miss  Wales's: 
what  beautiful  gray  eyes  Mr.  Framely  Stone 
had,  and  how  they  had  looked  into  hers,  down 
deep,  deep  into  hers!  Then  the  beautiful  eyes 
had  "looked  away  with  the  embarrassment  of 
impetuous,  admiring  youth;  and  at  the  same 
moment  Lily's  own  eyes  had  dropped  and  a 
faint  rose  color  deepened  on  her  smooth  cheek. 

Of  course  Miss  Wales,  cuffing  her  terrier  for 
his  insensate  barking  and  pouring  out  another 
cup  of  tea  for  herself,  had  not  seen  these  meet- 
ing, faltering  young  eyes.     But  she  had  found 
242 


A    BLACK    DROP 

Framely  Stone's  interest  in  Lily  a  little  dis- 
quieting, and  she  made  up  her  mind  that  there 
should  be  no  further  fireside  encounters — at 
least,  if  she  could  help  it.  "  He  hasn't  got  any 
father  and  mother  to  look  after  him,"  said  Miss 
Wales,  "and  I  don't  propose  to  receive  any 
posthumous  reproaches  when  I  get  to  heaven." 
To  prevent  such  heavenly  unpleasantness,  Miss 
Wales  told  Framely  that  Sunday  was  the  best 
time  to  call,  as  she  was  always  free  then.  "  My 
pupils — dear  children! — pursue  me  to  my  fire- 
side on  week-days;  so  come  on  Sundays,  will 
you,  Frame?" 

"Certainly,"  Stone  said,  a  little  blankly. 

And  when  Lily  came  to  tell  her  of  Mammy's 
seizure,  Miss  Wales,  with  a  sympathetic  arm 
about  the  girl's  shoulders,  took  occasion  to  men- 
tion that  thereafter  she  would  be  glad  to  see  her 
any  day  but  Sunday.  "  I  am  apt  to  be  engaged 
then,"  she  said;  "you  won't  mind,  will  you, 
my  dear?" 

And  Lily  said,  nervously,  "Of  co's'  not." 

"'Of  course,"  Miss  Wales  corrected  her, 
smiling. 

Both  young  people  had  listened  respectfully, 
and  Framely  had  called  on  the  next  Thursday; 
while  on  Sunday  afternoon  Lily  walked  half- 
243 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

way  to  Miss  Wales's  and  back  again,  to  get  some 
fresh  air — which,  indeed,  she  sadly  needed,  for 
though  Mammy  was  better  to  the  extent  of 
being  placed  each  morning  in  a  chair  by  the 
kitchen  stove,  and  sitting  there  in  icy  silence 
all  day  long,  still,  the  necessary  service  and 
nursing  was  very  taxing  to  Lily's  strength. 

Framely's  week-day  call  had  been  unpro- 
ductive— at  least,  in  regard  to  meeting  a  girl  in  a 
purple  dress  playing  a  nocturne  in  the  twilight ; 
but  it  did  give  him  a  chance  to  ask  questions 
about  her,  which  were  answered  so  curtly  that 
the  young  gentleman  said  to  himself,  crossly, 
that  he  would  be  hanged  if  he  was  going  to 
waste  his  time  on  any  more  duty  calls ;  he  would 
take  a  walk  on  Sundays,  he  said.  So  that  was 
how  it  came  about  that  all  Miss  Wales's  fore- 
sight was  of  no  avail,  for  the  very  next  Sunday 
afternoon,  when  Stone  went  moodily  out  to 
walk,  they  met,  these  two  young  creatures,  as  the 
gods  had  ordained  they  should — met,  and  walked 
the  length  of  the  River  Road ;  and  Lily  told  him 
how  she  hated  to  fall  behind  in  her  geometry, 
but  she  had  to  stay  at  home  and  take  care  of 
Mrs.  Foster — "Mammy,  I  call  her,"  said  Lily, 
shyly. 

"I  believe  that  was  very  customary  in  the 
244 


A    MAN    FEELS    PRETTY    LONELY    WITHOUT    ANY SISTERS,    DON  T 

YOU     KNOW'" 


A   BLACK    DROP 

South,  in  the  planter  class,  wasn't  it?"  Stone 
asked,  deferentially.  Upon  which,  naturally, 
she  told  him  her  little  story.  A  princess  in  a 
black  prison,  a  lily  in  an  alien  soil!  into  such 
terms  did  this  besotted  young  man  translate  to 
himself  Mammy's  kindness  to  an  orphan  baby. 
Then,  of  course,  he  told  her  his  story:  "  I  haven't 
any  people,  and  a  man  feels  pretty  lonely  with- 
out any — sisters,  don't  you  know.  I'm  going 
to  live  in  Mercer" — then  he  broke  off  to  in- 
veigh against  Mercer's  noise  and  soot;  and  Lily 
thought  that  that  was  because  he  was  just  per- 
fectly grand,  for  ordinary  people  didn't  mind 
dirt  and  noise. 

"  I  suppose  we  are  used  to  it  yere,"  said  Lily. 
And  Stone  said  that  he  hoped  she  wouldn't 
mind  his  saying  so,  but  he  thought  the  Southern 
accent  perfectly  delicious!  Lily  looked  gently 
bewildered,  but  the  young  man  did  not  wait  for 
any  reply ;  he  plunged  into  talk  of  all  the  things 
in  heaven  and  earth  and  the  eternities  that  he 
knew  nothing  about.  The  girl  listened  and 
agreed  to  everything  he  said,  her  soft,  sad  eyes 
betraying  her  conviction  that  he  was  the  wisest 
person  in  the  world.  It  was  the  same  old  story 
of  the  boy  and  the  girl,  no  matter  what  color 
their  skins  may  be !  But  indeed  their  skins  were 
245 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

just  alike,  except  that  Lily's  was  fairer  than 
that  of  the  tanned  and  ruddy  fellow  at  her  side. 


Ill 

THERE  is  no  need  to  tell  just  how  it  went.  . . . 
As  for  why  it  went,  who  can  say?  Framely 
Stone,  at  any  rate,  was  not  interested  in  such 
an  analysis;  he  must  have  known  that  it  was 
not  her  mind  that  made  him  love  her,  for  in  her 
gentle  silences,  her  slow,  monosyllabic  replies 
to  his  outpourings,  no  mind  was  visible;  it  was 
not  the  poor,  good  child's  goodness  that  at- 
tracted him,  for  he  really  did  not  know  how 
very  good  she  was ;  it  was  not  her  humor,  for  she 
had  none;  it  was  not  even  her  beauty,  for  he 
thought  very  little  about  it;  it  may,  perhaps, 
have  been  the  appeal  to  his  chivalry  —  the 
chance  to  rescue;  but  if  it  were  so  the  youth 
himself  did  not  know  it.  No,  Framely  could 
not  say  what  he  saw  in  Lily,  nor  why  he  was 
crazily  in  love  with  this  simple  creature  of  an- 
other world,  though  not  of  another  race;  this 
girl  whose  refinement  was,  of  course,  a  negligible 
quantity  rather  than  anything  positive — a  lack 
of  vulgarity  rather  than  any  true  perception  of 
beauty  and  fitness ;  whose  goodness  lay  in  doing 
246 


A   BLACK    DROP 

her  humble  duty;  whose  intellect  was  only  able 
to  adore  and  to  imitate.  He  did  not  know  or 
care  why  he  loved  her ;  he  loved  her !  That  was 
enough.  He  never  knew  just  when  he  fell  in 
love;  it  pleased  him  to  tell  her  that  it  was  the 
first  moment  he  had  seen  her,  sitting  at  the 
piano,  in  her  purple  dress,  with  one  hand  stray- 
ing idly  over  the  keys,  and  the  other  resting 
on  the  head  of  Miss  Wales's  shrill  fox  terrier. 
But  he  did  not  get  to  this  point  of  confidence  for 
some  three  months  after  that  first  walk.  Mean- 
time, there  was  a  call  at  the  house  on  Baker 
Street  (a  call  which  made  Framely  Stone  feel 
just  a  little  sick;  that  dreadful  locality!  that 
parlor — Augustus — Mammy;  And  Lily! — a  jew- 
el in  an  ebony  setting!):  then  no  more  calls, 
but  a  concert  or  two,  and  many  walks.  On 
one  of  these  she  told  him  that  it  was  terrible  to 
see  only  colored  people. 

"I  don't  mean  Mammy.  I  love  Mammy," 
Lily  said,  loyally,  but  her  lip  quivered.  It  was 
on  their  next  walk,  one  September  afternoon, 
that  he  tola  rier  he  loved  her.  Lily,  dazed  at 
the  wonder  and  the  glory  of  it,  stammered  she 
knew  not  what ;  and  then,  in  the  lonely  dusk  of 
an  old  covered  bridge,  the  young  man  took  her 
in  his  arms  for  one  swift  kiss  that  left  him 
247 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

trembling  with  the  new  solemnity  of  joy.  Lily 
was  stunned  into  rapturous  silence,  and  for  a 
while,  as  they  stood  looking  down  at  the  black 
water  lapping  and  whispering  against  the  stone 
pier  in  midstream,  there  was  only  a  broken  word 
or  two  from  Framely  and  a  murmur  from  Lily. 
When  they  got  into  the  open  country  and  were 
walking  under  the  yellowing  branches,  the  young 
man  told  her  what  he  wanted:  an  immediate 
marriage. 

"At  once,  dear,"  he  said — "at  once!  You 
must  come  away  from — from  that  old  life,  my 
Lily;  oh,  my  white,  white  Lily!  Of  course, 
dear,  my  gratitude  to  Mrs.  Foster  for  her  care 
of  you  makes  it  my  privilege  as  well  as  my 
duty  to  do  everything  I  can  for  her.  But  I 
must  take  you  quite  away,  darling ;  you  under- 
stand, my  white  Lily?" 

"You  don't  mean  you  don't  want  me  ever 
to — to  see  Mammy?"  Lily  said,  in  a  frightened 
voice. 

And  he  reassured  her  tenderly.  "Of  course 
not,  you  angel!  As  if  I  would  interfere  with 
your  angelic  sense  of  duty!" 

And  then  he  talked  about  their  future,  and  his 
wonderful  love,  the  like  of  which  had  never  been 
known  in  all  the  ages  of  the  whole  round  world ; 
248 


A   BLACK   DROP 

and  he  wanted  to  know  what  was  the  first 
minute  that  she  had  "given  him  a  second 
thought?"  And  she  was  so  absorbed  in  wor- 
shipping him  that  she  could  not  find  any  words 
to  reply.  So  it  was.  .  .  .  Again  the  old  story. 
Again  the  new  wonder. 

It  was  quite  dark  when  he  left  her  at  Mammy's 
door  on  Baker  Street.  "  Shall  I  come  in  and  tell 
her,  dearest?"  he  said;  but  she  shook  her  head. 

"She  does  not  understand  anything,"  she 
said,  sadly. 

There  were  several  dark  passers-by  on  Baker 
Street,  but  she  supposed  he  would  kiss  her  when 
he  said  good-night — it  was  the  custom  of  lovers 
on  Baker  Street  to  part  thus  kindly.  Instead 
he  held  her  hand  in  a  brief  clasp,  and  then, 
lifting  his  hat,  went  lightly  down  the  rickety 
wooden  steps  and  was  swallowed  up  in  the 
autumnal  dusk.  Lily's  heart  came  up  into  her 
throat  at  the  wonder  of  it. 

As  for  Stone,  he  went  to  his  rooms  and  wrote 
to  Miss  Wales,  announcing  his  good-fortune  in 
the  usual  formula  of  ecstatic  youth,  and  closing 
with  the  assurance  that  he  would  never  forget 
that  he  had  met  his  happy  fate  in  her  house; 
also,  that  he  would  come  round  after  dinner  and 
tell  her  all  about  it. 

249 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

Poor  old  Miss  Wales  put  his  letter  down  and 
said,  distractedly,  "Good  Heavens!"  It  was 
only  Miss  Wales  to  whom  the  news  could  be 
painful.  Framely  Stone  had  no  close  relations 
to  be  distressed  by  such  a  marriage;  as  for  his 
connections,  they  were  like  our  own — ready  to 
be  agreeably  shocked  and  intensely  interested 
in  seeing  him  make  a  fool  of  himself.  Only 
Miss  Wales  was  near  enough  to  the  situation, 
and  to  him  personally,  to  feel  positive  dismay, 
and  even  grief.  Indeed,  she  reproached  herself, 
almost  to  the  point  of  tears — as  if  she  could 
have  prevented  the  gods,  poor  old  lady! — but 
to  the  happy  lover,  when,  dutiful  and  stubborn, 
he  presented  himself  after  dinner  for  the  re- 
proaches he  knew  would  come,  she  only  said, 
bluntly : 

"Of  course  you  know  I  am  not  pleased." 

"Why  not?"  he  said,  cheerfully. 

"You  know  why  as  well  as  I  do,"  she  re- 
torted. 

"She's  poor,"  Framely  admitted,  smiling. 

Miss  Wales  frowned.  "  Please  don't  be  fool- 
ish." 

"  She  lives  with  colored  people,"  he  confessed, 
still  smiling. 

"Well,  if  you  want  to  put  it  that  way,  yes. 
250 


A   BLACK   DROP 

You  know  what  I  mean,  Frame,"  she  ended, 
pathetically. 

She  was  so  plainly  upset  that  Framely  Stone — 
who  was  really  a  very  nice  boy,  though  irritated, 
as  a  boy  naturally  would  be  at  opposition  in 
love  affairs — Frame  sobered  a  little,  and  said 
that  he  did  know  what  she  meant.  "Or  what 
you  think  you  mean,"  he  amended.  "You 
see,  Miss  Wales,  you  don't  understand  Lily.  I 
don't  believe  any  woman  could.  She  is — well, 
I  can't  seem  to  express  how  perfectly — why, 
wonderful,  don't  you  know? — she  is!  I  can't 
put  it  into  words!"  the  boy  despaired.  "Oh, 
Miss  Wales,  she  understands  when  I  talk  to  her!" 

"Well,"  Miss  Wales  admitted,  dryly,  "I  sup- 
pose it  is  convenient  to  have  a  wife  who  under- 
stands when  she  is  spoken  to;  but — " 

"Oh,  you  are  on  the  outside,"  Framely  in- 
terrupted; "you  can't  see  anything  but  her 
circumstances.  I  admit  they're  dreadful.  I 
am  perfectly  open-minded.  I  can  see  how  it 
strikes  you — a  young  white  girl  shut  out  from 
all  the  opportunities  not  only  of  her  class  but 
of  her  race.  That's  how  it  looks  to  you,  on  the 
surface;  but  below  the  surface — her  mind!  her 
soul!  Miss  Wales,  it  is  like  finding  a  jewel  in 
an  ash-heap!" 

'Si 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

Miss  Wales  shook  her  head  dolefully. 
"Framely,  please  don't  be  poetical;  it's  all  I 
can  do  to  get  my  breath,  without  trying  to  fol- 
low poetical  flights.  Frame,  I  don't  want  to  be 
an  interfering  old  maid,  but  you  know,  my  dear 
boy,  your  mother  and  I  were  very  dear  friends, 
and  your  father  was  a  sort  of  forty-second  cous- 
in, so  I  have  a  right  to  be  anxious  about  you. 
And,  of  course,  this  is  a  dreadful  mistake." 

Framely  sat  down  on  a  hassock  beside  her 
and  took  her  hand.  "Scold  me  all  you  want 
to;  it  shows  you  care  about  me.  There  isn't 
another  living  being  that  likes  me  enough  to 
scold  me.  But  please  like  my  Lily,  too." 

Miss  Wales  groaned.  "What  on  earth  do 
you  see  in  her!" 

Of  course,  only  a  logical  old  maid,  who  was 
also  a  school-marm,  would  have  asked  such  a 
question;  as  if  Framely  Stone,  or  any  other 
lover,  could  say  what  he  "saw"!  When  the 
young  man,  stumbling  among  his  adjectives, 
tried  to  answer  her,  Miss  Wales  gave  up  and 
listened  to  his  ecstasies  with  what  patience  she 
could.  But  under  her  patience  she  was  nerving 
herself.  .  .  .  Her  hand,  when  she  laid  it  upon 
his  arm  as  he  rose  to  go,  positively  trembled. 
"I  suppose,"  she  said,  with  a  little  breathless 
252 


A   BLACK   DROP 

laugh,  "that  class  differences  are  not  really 
vital;  or  even  differences  in  cultivation;  though 
I  have  always  thought,  poor  old  maid  that  I 
am! — that  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  at 
least  the  same  taste  in  jokes;  but — "  Miss 
Wales  was  really  frightened.  "  Framely,  please 
don't  be  angry,  but  I  must  ask  you  just  one 
thing :  Are  you  sure  she — is  white  T ' 

She  felt  his  arm  suddenly  contract  under  the 
shock  of  her  words.  He  shook  her  hand  off 
and  turned  fiercely  upon  her.  "Oh,  Frame, 
dear,"  she  entreated  him,  "  I  have  to  say  it. 
You  must  be  sure,  Framely." 

"I  am  sure,"  he  said,  frigidly. 

"Why  are  you  sure?"  she  asked;  and  added, 
in  a  whisper:  "I  have  never  been  sure." 

"You  insult  her!"  he  cried  out,  "I  can't 
discuss  this  with  you."  Then  he  softened,  for 
the  kind  old  face  was  trembling.  "  I  beg  your 
pardon.  I  know  you  only  mean  it  in  kindness 
to  me.  But  I  want  you  to  be  kind  to  Lily,  too, 
and — that  was  an  awfully  cruel  thing  to  say, 
Miss  Wales.  Yes,  I  am  sure!  Perfectly  sure. 
I  have  Lily's  own  word  for  it." 

"And  whose  word  does  Lily  have?"  she  said, 
softly. 

"Whose?"     Framely    repeated,    astounded. 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

"Why,  Mrs.  Foster's,  of  course.  Mrs.  Foster 
told  her  her  parents  were  white.  And  who 
would  know  better?" 

"Nobody,"  said  Miss  Wales,  significantly. 

The  smouldering  anger  in  the  young  man's 
honest  gray  eyes  leaped  into  flame.  "You 
think  Mrs.  Foster  is  a  liar?  I  wouldn't  have 
believed  that  you  could  be  so  unjust! — just 
because  she  is  colored.  Thank  God,  I  have  no 
prejudices  of  that  kind.  That  poor,  nice  old 
woman!  And  you  told  me  yourself  that  she 
had  the  most  beautiful  manners  in  the  world!" 

"  Do  you  think  beautiful  manners  and  truth- 
fulness are  necessarily  synonymous?  Still,  I 
don't  in  the  least  mean  that  she  is  what  you 
call  a  'liar.'  I  merely  mean  that  her  pride — 
you  know  she  is  very  light  herself — and  most 
of  all  her  love  for  Lily,  might — well,  she  might 
love  the  child  enough  to  deny  her,  don't  you 
know?" 

"Oh,  say  she  'lies,'"  Stone  said,  coldly. 
"  Don't  try  to  save  my  feelings.  All  I  can  say 
is  you  are  wrong.  Absolutely,  thoroughly,  en- 
tirely wrong.  Lily  is  as  white  as  her  name! 
Through  and  through,  body  and  soul. 

"  I  have  never  doubted  the  whiteness  of  her 
soul,"  said  Miss  Wales,  and  then  her  impa- 
254 


A   BLACK   DROP 

tience  hardened  into  the  purpose  of  protection. 
"Framely,  I  have  seen  people  with  colored 
skins  who  had  Anglo-Saxon  minds,  and  isn't  it, 
perhaps,  possible  to  bave  an  Anglo-Saxon  skin 
and  a  negro  mind  ?  And  Lily,  poor,  dear  Lily, 
her  mind — "  She  caught  at  his  arm  as  he 
turned  furiously  away.  "Frame,  wait,  dear 
boy!  Listen.  I  only  want  you  to  face  the 
possibility." 

"There  is  no  such  possibility!" 

Miss  Wales's  silence  was  more  emphatic  than 
words,  and  Stone,  to  the  accompaniment  of  the 
terrier's  distracted  barking,  took  his  departure 
with  all  the  formality  of  offence. 

As  for  his  old  friend,  vainly  bidding  her  dog 
be  quiet,  she  went  back  to  her  little  parlor  and 
stood  for  a  long  time,  staring  at  the  blazing  coal 
in  the  grate.  "  It  would  be  safer,"  she  was  say- 
ing to  herself — "  safer  if  he  could  have  said, '  I 
don't  care  if  she  isn't  white.'  But  he  could  not 
say  that,"  said  Miss  Wales. 

Miss  Wales  was  not  the  only  person  to  be 
upset  by  learning  what  had  happened  on  the 
River  Road  that  night.  .  .  . 

When  Lily,  her  dazzled  eyes  wide  with  hap- 
piness, pushed  open  the  door  of  the  house  on 
255 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

Baker  Street,  she  found  Mammy  bundled  up  in 
the  red-and-white  patchwork  quilt,  motionless 
in  her  big  chair,  and  Augustus  at  the  table 
fussing  with  the  reluctant  wick  of  a  kerosene 
lamp.  He  frowned  with  relief  when  Lily 
entered. 

"Yere,  yo',  Lily!"  he  said,  irritably,  "I  can't 
fix  this  yere  lamp.  Seems  to  me  yo's  mighty 
neglectful  of  yo'  Mammy  these  days.  I  had  to 
feed  her  myself,  yo'  so  late." 

Lily  contritely  steadied  the  lamp-chimney 
before  she  took  off  her  hat,  while  Augustus, 
glancing  behind  him,  said,  in  a  whisper :  "  What, 
ma'am?"  and  waited  for  some  voiceless  reply. 
Then  he  said: 

"  So  yo'  Stone  fellah  come  home  with  yo'  ? 
Yo'  ought  to  be  'shamed  o'  yo'self,  Lily;  ef  yo' 
Mammy  had  her  senses  she  wouldn't  'low  no 
such  goin's  on  with  a  white  fellah." 

Lily  was  not  listening;  she  went  over  and 
knelt  down  by  Mammy,  putting  her  arms 
around  the  inert  figure,  and  saying  something 
in  a  joyous  whisper ;  then  she  looked  passion- 
ately up  into  the  deaf,  unheeding  face. 

"Oh,  Mammy,  can't  you  hear?  Dear  Mam- 
my! you  would  be  so  glad  if  you  knew!" 

Augustus  had  spread  an  evening  paper  out 
256 


A    BLACK    DROP 

under  the  lamp,  and  was  laboriously  spelling 
his  way  down  its  pink  columns;  perhaps  he 
heard  and  guessed,  perhaps  "Sarah"  whispered 
it  in  his  ear;  he  lifted  his  head  sharply  and 
looked  at  Lily,  smiling  and  crying,  and  stroking 
the  poor  numb  hands.  There  was  a  minute's 
silence,  then,  abruptly  crumpling  his  pink  sheet 
together,  he  rose,  and  resting  his  thin  palms 
flat  on  the  table  he  leaned  over  towards  her: 

"  What  ?  What's  that  ?  Has  he  been  makin' 
up  to  yo'  ? — I  won't  have  no  such  doin's!" 

"'Gustus!  Mammy,  hear  that  wicked  'Gus- 
tus !  Listen  to  me :  he  has  asked  me  to  marry 
him,  that  gentleman  has.  I  am  going  to  marry 
Mr.  Stone!" 

"Him,  marry  yo' ?"  said  Augustus.  His 
black  lips  drew  back  from  his  yellowing  teeth 
in  an  incredulous  laugh.  "Go  'long!"  he 
said. 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Lily.  "  I  don't  care  whether 
you  believe  it  or  not — if  I  can  only  make 
Mammy  understand  it!" 

Augustus  gaped  with  amazement.  "  He  want 
to  marry  yo'  ?"  he  said,  in  honest  bewilderment; 
then  abruptly  he  turned  his  head  and  listened. 
"  Yas,  co's'  I'll  ask  her,"  he  said;  "she's  got  to 
tell  me  now,  ef  she's  goin'  off  with  a  white 
257 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

man. — Lily,  ef  yo're  goin'  to  git  married  and 
go  off,  yo'  got  to  gimme  Mammy's  book." 

"  How  can  I,  when  I  don't  know  where  it  is  ?" 

"Ef  yo'  don'  tell  me,"  he  threatened,  "yo' 
sha'n't  go  outen  this  yere  house." 

"  But  I  don't  know,"  she  insisted,  impatiently. 

"I'll  make  yo'  tell  me,"  he  said,  softly,  and 
crouched  a  little,  as  if  about  to  spring.  "Lily: 
yo'  hear  me?  Where?" 

"Mammy!"  the  girl  cried,  shrinking  close  to 
the  big,  motionless  figure.  "Mammy,  I'm 
'fraid  of  him!  'Gustus,  I  don't  know." 

"Well,  then,  yo'll  stay  right  yere  in  this 
house.  Yo'  white  fellow  won't  marry  yo'  when 
I  tell  him — yo'  ain't  white." 

Lily  stared  at  him.  She  was  so  frightened 
that  his  words  had  no  meaning.  "I  don't 
know  where  it  is,"  she  repeated,  faintly. 

"'Sarah/  she  talked  with  yo'  pa.  He  tole 
her  yo'  wasn't  white.  Mammy  is  yo'  mother. 
'Sarah'  says  so." 

The  sense  of  it  reached  her  then,  and  at  the 
same  instant  its  foolishness.  She  gave  him  a 
contemptuous  glance.  "I  don't  care  what 
'Sarah'  says,  and  Mr.  Stone  won't  care,  either. 
'Gustus,  I  can't  tell  you  about  the  book.  I 
can't  tell  you  what  I  don't  know,  can  I?" 
258 


A   BLACK   DROP 

"Then  I'll  tell  yo*  somethin'  I  do  know," 
he  began.  "  Mr.  Stone  won't  care  what '  Sarah ' 
say?  Maybe  he'll  care  what  Mammy  say? 
Mammy  tole  me — now  this  is  truth,  as  I'm 
alive;  yo'  Mammy  tole  me  that  yo'  was  her 
own  chile.  Will  Mr.  Stone  marry  yo'  when  I 
tell  him  that,  Mammy's  chile?" 

The  light  of  the  lamp  shone  on  his  malicious 
grin,  and  glistened  faintly  in  the  fixed  black- 
ness of  the  unseeing  eyes  that  stared  from  the 
other  side  of  the  table.  Lily  put  her  hand  up 
as  if  to  ward  off  a  blow.  "Mammy's — child?" 
she  said,  in  a  whisper. 

"  Yas,"  Augustus  assured  her,  loudly.  "  She's 
yo'  mother.  Yo'  don*  take  stock  in  '  Sarah  T 
Well,  yo'll  believe  yo'  own  mother,  maybe? 
She  tole  me  all  about  it.  Yo'  father's  dead. 
He  was  white — else,  co's*  I  wouldn't  'a'  mar- 
ried her.  I'm  a  perfect  gem'man.  Ef  yo'll 
tell  me  the  bank,  I  won't  tell  yo'  white  fellah." 

Lily,  with  a  cry  turned,  and  flung  herself 
against  Mammy's  knee.  "Mammy,  you're 
not — ?  You're  not — ?  Can't  you  hear  me!" 
She  clutched  the  great  inert  arm  and  shook  it. 
"Listen!  You  —  you  are  a  colored  woman. 
You  are  not  my — my — ?  Say  you  are  not— 
say  you  are  not?" 

259 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

And  Augustus,  over  his  shoulder,  observed, 
"Listen  to  her,  ma'am  —  denyin'  her  own 
mother!" 

IV 

FRAMELY  had  suggested,  very  gently,  that  it 
would  be  better  for  them  to  walk  together  than 
for  him  to  call  on  Lily.  His  first  call  on  Nigger 
Hill,  when  he  had  been  received  in  Mammy's 
parlor,  with  its  musky  smell,  its  tawdry  fur- 
nishings, its  photographs  of  black  faces,  was  a 
nightmare  to  him.  Remembering  it,  he  said 
that  it  would  be  pleasanter  to  walk.  Lily 
agreed,  of  course.  She  would  have  agreed  to 
anything,  poor,  happy,  bewildered  child.  So 
when  a  little  note  came  from  her  the  very  next 
morning,  asking  him  to  call,  his  instant  thought, 
as  he  hurried  to  her,  was  that  she  was  ill. 

And,  indeed,  she  looked  very  ill,  the  frozen 
white  creature,  with  pallid  lips  and  black  shad- 
ows under  her  eyes.  She  opened  the  door  in 
answer  to  his  ring,  and  as  he  stepped  in  he  had 
a  glimpse  of  the  kitchen  at  the  end  of  the  little 
hall,  and  the  shining  stove,  and  Mammy's  fixed 
face  above  the  red-and-white  quilt.  When  they 
entered  the  parlor,  Framely  held  out  joyous 
arms. 

260 


A   BLACK    DROP 

"Wait  a  minute,"  Lily  said.  "First,  I  want 
to  tell  you  .  .  .  'Gustus  says  ...  I  am  not — 
white." 

Framely,  his  arms  still  outstretched,  looked 
at  her  vacantly,  then,  laughing,  caught  her  to 
his  breast.  "  What  are  you  talking  about?"  he 
said,  gayly.  Lily,  trembling,  pushed  him  away 
from  her  and  looked  into  his  face,  speechless. 

"Lily,  darling!     What's  the  matter?" 

"He  says — I  am  not — white,"  she  repeated, 
breathlessly. 

Framely  Stone  gasped,  as  if  he  had  been 
struck  below  the  belt.  He  said,  hurriedly: 
"What?  What?" 

"Augustus  says  Mammy  is  my  mother. 
Mammy  is  colored." 

"He  is  a  liar!"  the  young  man  said.  "Lily, 
you  sha'n't  stay  another  hour  in  the  same  house 
with  the  beast.  He  is  a  liar!" 

"I  don't  know,"  Lily  said,  numbly. 

"  7  know!"  Framely  cried.  "  Why,  my  darling, 
my  dearest,  didn't  Mrs.  Foster  herself  tell  you 
dozens  of  times — 

"Yes,"  Lily  agreed,  heavily;  "but  'Gustus 
says  that  was  because  she  was  so  proud  because 
I  was — light.  He  says  she  told  him  that  she 
was  my  mother." 

261 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

They  looked  at  each  other  in  silence;  then 
the  boy  said,  harshly:  "Of  course,  it  is  a  lie! 
One  has  but  to  look  at  you —  But  Mrs.  Foster 
will  tell  us." 

"She  can't  speak,"  Lily  reminded  him. 

"But  she  must,  she  must!"  he  said;  "that 
fool  can't  be  allowed  to  say  such  things — " 

"I  don't  see  that  I  am  any  different,"  she 
said,  faintly.  "  I  am  just  the  same  as  I  was — 
last  night."  She  gave  him  a  bewildered  look. 
"Ain't  I?"  she  asked,  in  a  frightened  voice. 

"Yes,  yes;  of  course  you  are!"  he  cried,  and 
took  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her.  "It  is 
all  a  hideous  lie,"  he  assured  her.  And  then, 
with  his  lips  against  her  cheek,  he  whispered, 
as  lovers  love  to  do,  his  challenge  to  Fate: 
"And  suppose  it  wasn't  a  lie?  I  love  you!  I 
love  you!  And  nothing  makes  any  difference 
where  there  is  love.  But  it  is  a  lie." 

He  felt  her  delicate  body  relax  in  his  arms 
and  sag  down  upon  his  breast,  but  the  storm 
of  reassuring  denial  brought  the  color  back  to 
her  face.  "It  frightened  me  so,"  she  said, 
timidly,  and  smiled,  with  the  tears  wet  on  her 
dark  lashes.  "But  I  am  sure  you  are  right; 
why,  Mammy's  told  me  hundreds  of  times  that 
my  father  and  mother  were  white  people." 
262 


A   BLACK   DROP 

"Of  course!"  he  said,  and  then  made  her  tell 
him  just  what  had  happened.  When  he  heard 
it  all  he  demanded  to  see  Augustus.  Together 
he  and  Lily  went  out  into  the  kitchen.  There, 
standing  between  Mammy,  motionless  in  her 
chair,  and  Augustus,  cringing  behind  the  table 
and  whispering  agitatedly  to  some  unseen  con- 
federate, Stone  wrung  from  the  mulatto  every 
accusing  word — not  one  of  which  was  evidence. 

"You  lie!"  the  lawyer  flung  at  him,  con- 
temptuously. He  was  aflame  with  generous 
and  protecting  love ;  with  the  frightened  creat- 
ure trembling  against  his  arm,  chivalry  cast 
out  fear.  "We'll  prove  him  a  liar,  dearest," 
he  assured  her,  over  and  over;  "don't  think  of 
the  thing  again!" 

But  when  he  left  her  and  walked  home 
through  the  squalid  streets,  somewhere  back 
in  his  mind  the  thing  lifted  its  evil  head.  .  .  . 
Suppose  that  Augustus  had  not  —  lied?  All 
that  day  the  thought,  repudiated  and  denied, 
returned  to  dog  him;  late  in  the  evening  he 
went  out  to  tramp  through  the  darkness  to  get 
rid  of  the  devilish  impossibility.  It  was  nearly 
twelve  when  some  sudden  impulse  turned  him 
before  he  knew  it  in  the  direction  of  Miss 
Wales's  house,  and  he  found  himself  hurrying 
263 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

along  the  street,  repeating  fiercely  the  assurance 
he  had  given  Lily:  "Lying  nigger — I'll  wring 
his  neck  for  him!" 

At  Miss  Wales's  door  he  rung,  then  pounded 
on  the  panel  in  a  distracted  haste  that  could 
not  wait  for  the  old  feet  hurrying  down  the 
stairs.  Swathed  in  her  gray  dressing-gown, 
with  the  fox  terrier  barking  distractedly  beside 
her,  Miss  Wales  opened  the  door  herself,  hold- 
ing her  candle  above  her  head  to  see  who  it 
was. 

"Framely!"  she  ejaculated,  as  the  flickering 
light  fell  on  his  face;  "what  on  earth  has  hap- 
pened?" 

And  the  young  man  with  set  teeth  told  her 
what  had  happened:  "That  damned  mulatto 
has  lied  about  Lily." 

Miss  Wales  was  stricken  dumb.  Stone,  in  his 
angry  absorption,  pushed  past  her  into  the  par- 
lor. "Where  are  the  matches?"  he  said.  He 
fumbled  for  his  own  case,  scratched  a  light, 
broke  the  match,  swore  under  his  breath,  and 
at  last  got  the  gas  lighted.  Then  he  looked 
at  her.  "Well,  why  don't  you  say  something? 
Can't  you  see  how  horrible  it  is  ?  Not  that  it 
could  make  any  difference  to  me,  it's  only  the 
insult  to  her!  But  of  course  there  is  not  a  wor4 
264 


A   BLACK    DROP 

of  truth  in  it.  Lily  says  she  is  perfectly  sure 
she  is  white.  I  haven't  a  particle  of  anxiety 
about  it.  But  don't  you  see  how  horrible 
it  is?" 

"  I  see,"  she  said.  "  Oh,  my  dear  boy,  I  wish 
I  didn't  see  so  much.  I'm  afraid — I'm  afraid." 

"  Afraid  of  what  ?  What  is  there  to  be  afraid 
of?  The  only  thing  I'm  afraid  of  is  that  I 
won't  get  a  chance  to  break  his  head!" 

"  I'm  afraid— " 

His  eyes  threatened  her,  and  she  dared  not 
finish. 

"The  first  thing  to  do,"  he  said,  "is  to  prove 
him  a  liar." 

Miss  Wales  was  silent. 

"But  I  don't  know  how  to  go  to  work,"  he 
groaned.  "  Every  way  seems  blocked.  If  Mrs. 
Foster  would  only  speak !  Or  if  we  knew  where 
she  came  from!  Of  course,  I'll  track  her  down 
and  find  out." 

"  Why  should  you  ?"  Miss  Wales  said.  "  Why 
is  it  necessary  to  find  out — anything?" 

"What?"  he  stammered;  "not  prove  that 
Lily  is  white?" 

"Do  you  have  to  prove  it  to  love  her?"  the 
old  woman  said,  her  eyes  narrowing. 

Silence  tingled  between  them,  and  then,  as  if 
265 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

the  words  were  torn  from  him,  he  said,  in  an 
agonized  voice: 

"Why,  I— I  have  to  prove  it  to— to— "  He 
stopped,  and  ended  in  a  gasping  whisper:  "to 
marry  her." 

Miss  Wales  drew  a  deep  breath.  He  had  said 
it!  "I  want  to  say  one  or  two  things  to  you," 
she  began.  .  .  . 

She  said  them,  mercilessly.  There  were  cer- 
tain traits  in  Lily — she  rehearsed  them  one  after 
another,  her  even  voice  unshaken  by  his  pas- 
sionate interruptions  and  denials;  there  were 
characteristics  of  temperament,  of  physique,  of 
taste  even — she  did  not  spare  him  one  of  them. 
"Until  I  stopped  her,"  said  Miss  Wales,  "she 
used  a  sort  of  heavy  perfumery";  then  she 
added  three  sinister  words:  "  They  all  do." 

She  had  other  things  to  say,  but  he  would 
not  listen.  He  stormed  at  her,  insisting  that 
she  "take  back"  everything  she  had  said.  In 
his  fury  he  got  up  and  tramped  about  the  lit- 
tle room.  "How  can  you  have  such  thoughts! 
— (Miss  Wales,  if  that  dog  doesn't  stop  bark- 
ing, I'll — )  Lily!  As  white  as  her  name!  I 
thought  you'd  see  how  she  has  been  lied  about. 
My  God !  What  am  I  going  to  do  ?" 

What  he  did  do  was  to  stay,  storming,  and 
266 


A    BLACK    DROP 

denying,  and  affirming  that  anyhow  it  didn't 
make  any  difference,  until  almost  daylight. 
When  Miss  Wales,  with  one  hand  gripping  her 
terrier's  nose,  and  pallid  with  fatigue,  let  him 
out  into  the  dawn,  he  went  away  without  even 
a  good-bye.  "Hard  hit,  my  poor  Frame,"  she 
said  to  herself,  as  she  toiled  stiffly  up-stairs  for 
a  little  nap.  And  then  she  thought  pityingly 
of  Lily.  "Whatever  happens,  I  can  see  that 
she  is  going  to  be  my  chore,  poor  child."  .  .  . 
"It  could  make  no  difference,"  Stone  had  said. 
And  Miss  Wales,  repeating  his  words,  added,  as 
if  he  could  hear  her:  "My  dear,  the  difference 
was  made  before  you  were  born.  You  are 
helpless." 

He  was  helpless.  ...  Of  course,  he  struggled. 
Perhaps  the  straw  on  the  current  struggles  to 
go  up-stream.  Against  the  imperious  surge  of 
instinct,  which  forbids  the  higher  organism  to 
jeopardize  the  future,  this  youth  put  first  love, 
and  then  pity,  and  then  his  word  of  honor.  But 
in  that  terrific  current,  love,  if  a  man  holds  to 
it,  drags  him  down ;  and  nature  has  nothing  in 
common  with  pity — that  artifice  of  civilization 
to  retard  the  fittest!  Instinct  sweeps  past  pity 
as  a  stream  sweeps  past  the  bending  grasses  on 
18  267 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

the  shore.  Perhaps  honor  goes  under  last — 
even  an  honor  weighted  by  that  false  idea  of 
obligation  which  holds  a  man  to  his  word  to  a 
woman  he  does  not  wish  to  marry;  but  not 
even  honor  can  outride  the  elemental  torrent 
of  instinct. 

It  was  a  terrible  winter  for  Framely  Stone 
— hurling  himself,  poor  lad,  against  an  unin- 
telligible but  irresistible  command  of  nature. 
His  careless  youth  dropped  away  from  him  like 
a  garment  of  beauty  and  defence ;  he  grew  sud- 
denly old;  almost  in  a  night  the  lines  came 
about  his  lips  and  on  his  forehead.  ...  At  first  he 
took  up  the  struggle  with  a  high  heart ;  he  was 
confident  that  proof  would  be  found  that  Lily 
was  white.  By-and-by,  as  his  confidence  wa- 
vered, he  was  sure  that  he  would  be  able  to  ac- 
cept uncertainty,  for  apparently  it  could  never 
be  more  than  that ;  if  Lily  could  not  be  proved 
white,  neither  could  she  be  proved  black.  But 
it  was  at  this  time  that  a  new  look  came  into 
his  face,  a  look  of  fear.  Would  he  be  able  to 
bear  uncertainty  ?  No  wonder  he  looked  scared ! 
A  man  can  lose  love  out  of  his  life,  or  happiness; 
but  what  will  become  of  him  if  he  lose  self- 
respect?  If  he  "threw  her  over" — he  put  it 
to  himself  as  brutally  as  he  could — if  he  played 
268 


A   BLACK    DROP 

the  sneak,  and  asked  to  be  released  from  his 
engagement,  would  he  ever  look  himself  in  the 
face  again?  No  wonder  Framely  Stone  was 
afraid!  All  that  dark  Mercer  winter  he  took 
every  possible  step  to  prove  what  he  wanted  to 
prove,  and  all  the  while  he  reassured  himself 
by  insisting  that,  as  Augustus  had  been  a 
criminal,  he  was  presumably  a  liar.  "  In  prison 
for  three  years,  for  theft;  I  wouldn't  believe 
any  statement  of  his  under  oath — against  Mrs. 
Foster's  word;  she  was  truthful,  wasn't  she, 
Lily?" 

And  Lily,  remembering  the  "orphum  'sylum," 
and  many  other  harmless  statements,  hesitated, 
and  said,  why,  yes;  she  supposed  so,  only,  ex- 
cept—  sometimes.  .  .  .  "But,"  the  poor  girl 
would  add,  timidly,  "what  is  the  use  of  proving 
anything,  Framely?  What  difference  does  it 
make?  It  won't  make  my  skin  any  whiter 
or  any  darker.  Oh,  I  am  just  the  same  girl! 
And  I  know  I  am  white.  Mammy  said  so." 

And  Stone,  groaning  to  himself,  would  say: 
"Yes,  of  course,  of  course.  But  I  want  to 
show  up  this  scoundrel  Augustus.  Oh — if  Mrs. 
Foster  could  only  speak!  Perhaps  she  will, 
soon?" 

Instead  of  speaking,  Mammy  sank  into  the 
269 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

eternal  silence.  She  died  in  April,  without  a 
word  or  look  to  answer  the  tragic  question. 
The  funeral  was  in  the  morning,  so,  of  course, 
Miss  Wales  could  not  be  present,  but  it  was 
understood  that,  when  the  service  was  over, 
Framely  was  to  bring  poor  Lily  to  her.  "  She 
is  to  stay  here,  Frame,"  Miss  Wales  told  him, 
"until—" 

"Yes;  until—"  Stone  said. 

He  went  alone,  in  all  the  decorum  of  a  frock- 
coat  and  silk  hat,  to  the  little  house  on  Baker 
Street.  There  was  a  chattering  group  about 
the  front  door-steps,  and  the  darkened  parlor 
was  crowded  to  suffocation  with  musky,  vocif- 
erating grief;  some  pungent  perfumery,  mixing 
with  the  smell  of  cheap  crape,  drowned  the 
faint  sweetness  of  Framely's  wreath  of  violets. 
Augustus,  in  deep  mourning,  the  whites  of  his 
eyes  gleaning  opalescently  in  the  gloom,  was  a 
grotesquely  solemn  master  of  ceremonies;  with 
a  black-gloved  hand,  he  waved  Framely  to  a 
chair  close  to  the  big  varnished  and  glittering 
coffin.  As  he  passed  it,  the  young  man  gave 
a  shrinking  look — and  when  his  eyes  rested 
upon  the  gray  face  on  the  white  satin  pillow, 
something  seemed  to  grip  his  heart  in  his  breast 
— grip  it,  and  squeeze  the  blood  out  of  it,  and  let 
270 


A   BLACK    DROP 

it  drop.  The  sharp  refinement  of  death  had 
chiselled  the  features  into  new  lines. . . .  Framely 
was  dizzy  as  he  sat  down  by  Lily,  and  his 
face,  in  the  blackness  about  them,  was  as 
ghastly  white  as  hers.  He  held  himself  in 
rigid  control  during  the  service,  never  raising  his 
eyes  from  the  floor ;  once  the  cadenced  moaning 
of  the  pleased  and  excited  mourners  broke  into 
an  audible  "Oh,  Lawd!  Amen,  dear  Jesus! 
Sweet  Jesus!" — and  at  that  he  shivered;  there 
was  something  elemental  in  the  sound,  it  came 
from  dim  and  primeval  recesses;  it  frightened 
the  white  creature,  who  was  a  little  further  from 
those  abysmal  depths  from  which  he,  as  well 
as  they,  had  sprung.  Stone  shivered,  but  he 
did  not  lift  his  eyes. 

It  was  that  night,  after  the  funeral,  that  his 
last  clutch  for  honor  missed.  .  .  .  He  had  "buck- 
ed the  universe,"  poor  boy!  and  he  was  in  the 
dust.  "I  can't,"  he  said  to  himself.  "I  can't 
—I  can't."  .  .  . 

He  looked  years  older  when  he  went  to  ask 
her  to  release  him.  If  the  girl's  happiness  had 
been  torn  from  her  because  of  that  effort  to  go 
against  the  stream,  the  man's  self-respect  had 
been  whirled  away,  too.  "I  can't,  Lily.  You 
don't  loathe  me  as  I  loathe  myself.  But — I 
271 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

can't.  I  can't  face  the — the  uncertainty,  even. 
I  don't  ask  you  to  forgive  me.  I  am  not  worthy 
of  forgiveness.  And  yet,  Lily  —  Lily,  I  am 
helpless." 

"I  know  I  am  white,"  she  said,  pitifully; 
"but  even  if  I  wasn't,  I  am  just  the  same  girl." 

"I  am  not  the  same  man,"  he  said,  harshly. 
"  That's  all  there  is  to  it.  Lily — /  don't  under- 
stand it ;  only — it's  bigger  than  I  am.  I  fought 
it,  and  it  downed  me.  That's  all  I  can  say. 
It's  bigger  than  I  am." 

He  buried  his  face  in  his  hands  for  a  minute, 
and  then  he  looked  up.  "And  I  suppose,"  he 
said,  miserably,  "that  you  will  never  believe 
that  I  love  you?" 

Lily  half  smiled;  then  she  sighed  and  shook 
her  head.  "No,"  she  said;  "of  co's'  I  can 
never  believe  that." 


THE   WHITE    FEATHER 


THE  WHITE   FEATHER 


RICHARD  PHILLIPS  sat  at  his  work- 
table,  staring  blankly  at  the  letter  lying 
open  on  the  writing-pad.  The  pounding  in  his 
ears,  and  the  curious,  muffled  feeling  in  his 
throat  were  subsiding;  but  he  was  still  con- 
scious of  his  body — of  a  tingling  in  his  hands, 
and  a  sense  of  weakness  about  his  knees. 

"I'm  not  surprised,"  he  said;  "of  course 
I'm  not  surprised." 

Then,  in  the  midst  of  the  surprise  which  he 
denied,  a  surprise  of  body  as  well  as  soul,  he 
was  aware  of  a  small  surprise  at  hearing  his 
own  voice.  For  he  had  spoken  his  thought 
aloud.  He  picked  up  the  letter  again,  and,  to 
his  annoyance,  saw  that  his  hand  was  not 
steady.  Holmes  had  said  that  the  book  bore 
the  traces  of  a  fatigued  body;  well,  here  was 
evidence  of  that  fatigue — his  hand  was  un- 
275 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

steady.  His  nerves  were  playing  a  preposter- 
ous trick  upon  him ;  they  were  making  him 
act  like  an  hysterical  school-girl!  The  mortifi- 
cation of  it  made  his  hand  shake  all  the  more. 
With  a  faint  laugh  he  put  the  letter  back  on 
the  table,  and  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pock- 
ets. Then  he  drew  a  long  breath  and  looked 
about  the  darkening  room  as  though  to  find 
something  to  distract  his  thought.  It  was  not 
a  winning  room,  but  it  was  not  bad — as  rooms 
in  flats  go.  It  was  small,  and  looked  out  on 
the  well -way;  on  a  bright  day  Phillips  could 
see  shadows  of  blowing  steam  from  an  escape- 
pipe  on  the  roof  chasing  down  the  blank  white 
wall  opposite  the  window.  In  the  early  morning 
the  sun  pointed  a  thin  finger  into  this  well-way 
and  touched  Phillips' s  inkstand,  striking  a  fleet- 
ing glitter  from  the  silver  top.  There  were  other 
silver  things  on  his  table — Agnes  presented  him 
with  some  new  and  useless  "furnishing"  every 
Christmas;  but  the  litter  of  letters  and  old 
proof-sheets  and  stray  pages  of  manuscript  hid 
them.  It  was  a  most  untidy  work-table— 
more  or  less  dusty,  and  of  a  confusion  that 
would  have  been  distracting  to  anybody  but 
the  owner,  who  maintained,  against  his  women- 
kind,  that  the  "arrangement"  of  his  papers  was 
276 


THE    WHITE   FEATHER 

the  most  convenient  that  could  be  devised. 
The  walls  of  the  room  were  lined  with  books; 
on  chairs  or  on  the  floor  piles  of  pamphlets  and 
magazines  grew  into  dusty  towers,  a  little  taller 
and  more  toppling  each  month.  There  was 
an  ill-smelling  collection  of  pipes  on  the  mantel- 
piece; and  Richard  insisted,  for  reasons  best 
known  to  himself,  on  keeping  various  shoes 
and  slippers  in  a  corner  behind  the  letter-press. 

"It's  perfectly  disgraceful!"  Agnes  Phillips 
used  to  sigh.  "  He  will  not  have  a  thing  done 
to  that  dreadful  study  of  his!  I  offered  to 
dust  it  myself,  so  that  Sarah  shouldn't  mix  his 
papers  up;  but  he  won't  let  me  touch  it." 

"My  dear,"  her  husband  would  say,  with  his 
whimsical  smile,  "your  part  of  the  flat  is  im- 
maculate— do  be  content;  only  man  is  vile." 

"But  you  like  it,"  she  protested,  with  dis- 
pleasure. 

And  as  it  was  the  only  spot  in  the  house 
where  this  mild  creature,  with  keen,  gentle 
brown  eyes,  felt  himself  absolute  master,  he 
would  reply,  with  distinct  satisfaction  in  his 
tone,  "Yes,  I  do  like  it."  And  Agnes,  who, 
when  she  was  not  displeased  or  worried  about 
anything,  had  a  pretty  wit  of  her  own,  would 
say  that  she  believed  he  gloried  in  his  shame. 
277 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

But,  in  spite  of  confusion  and  dust,  it  was 
not  an  entirely  bad  little  room,  because  on 
bright  days  there  were  the  blowing  shadows 
on  the  white  wall,  and  on  dull  days  there 
was  an  open  fire,  chuckling  and  winking  be- 
hind the  rusty  iron  dogs.  This  afternoon,  how- 
ever, there  was  no  sunshine,  and  the  fire  had 
gone  out ;  a  log  had  burned  through  in  the  mid- 
dle, broken,  and  fallen  apart  in  two  charred 
points.  It  was  growing  dark  now,  in  the  early 
winter  dusk;  and  the  dead  ashes,  the  confusion 
of  papers,  the  dusty  mantel  -  piece,  and  pipes 
and  pamphlets  brought  a  certain  bleakness  into 
the  room  that  fell  cold  upon  the  man's  heart, 
where  already  the  substance  of  that  letter  on 
his  desk  lay  like  a  weight.  And  yet,  for  sound, 
warm,  honest  friendship  the  letter  was  like  the 
clasp  of  a  hand — a  surgeon's  hand,  perhaps,  just 
before  he  begins  his  dreadful  and  beneficent 
work.  For  there  was  surgery  in  that  letter, 
which  bore  the  imprint  of  the  editorial  rooms  of  a 
periodical  of  serious  distinction  in  literature. . . . 

DEAR  PHILLIPS  [it  began], — I  have  read  the  MS. 
with  most  anxious  concern.  I  have  been  counting 
on  it,  as  you  know,  for  my  next  serial,  and  your  hint 
of  your  own  dissatisfaction  with  it  caused  me  a  little 
uneasiness,  for  I  think  you  are  the  only  man  I  know 
278 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

whose  opinion  of  his  own  work  has  really  critical 
value.  When  I  finished  it  I  was  compelled  to  be- 
lieve that  your  judgment  was  correct.  The  White 
Feather  is  not  up  to  your  own  standard  —  a  stand- 
ard, my  dear  fellow,  which,  as  you  very  well  know, 
ranks  you  as  among  the  first  men  of  letters  in  this 
country.  The  White  Feather  bears  (as  you  said 
you  feared)  the  marks  of  the  physical  strain  of  these 
last  two  years :  the  work  is  sick  work ;  the  work  of  a 
man  staggering  from  a  physical  experience  which  has 
not  yet  transmuted  itself  (as  it  will)  into  a  spiritual 
one.  In  this  temporary  condition  it  is  obvious  that 
The  White  Feather  has  been  written.  When  I  say 
that  we  must  not  use  it  for  our  serial  next  year,  I 
speak  as  much  for  your  sake  as  for  our  own.  You 
cannot  afford,  my  dear  Phillips,  to  put  mediocre  work 
on  the  market.  Your  most  valuable  asset  is  the  ab- 
solute integrity  of  your  artistic  sense.  I  don't  know 
that  it  will  mean  much  to  you,  but  I  can't  help  tell- 
ing you  that  you  are  the  only  literary  man  of  whom 
(in  my  opinion)  that  can  be  said  to-day.  In  these 
times  of  century  runs,  so  to  speak, — of  panting  ad- 
vertising efforts  for  popularity, — your  work  stands 
out  from  the  vulgar  herd  of  books  as  a  star  above  a 
fog-bank.  (Now,  for  a  poor  hack  of  an  editor,  I 
think  that's  rather  a  fine  phrase.)  Of  course  your 
next  book  will  find  you  on  your  legs,  and  I  do  hope  it 
will  be  possible  for  xis  to  avail  ourselves  of  it.  Pray 
let  me  know  what  it  is  to  be  about,  and  when  I  may 
hope  to  see  it. 

Then  followed  one  or  two  commonplaces  about 
some  mutual  friends,  and  the  hope  that  Mrs. 
Phillips   and   Rosamond   were   well,   and   the 
279 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

assurance  that  the  writer  was  his  old  friend  and 
admirer. 

But  when  Richard  Phillips  read  this  letter 
he  felt  the  blood  buzz  in  his  ears.  He  had 
known  that  the  work  was  not  up  to  his  own 
mark ;  Agnes  knew  it,  too,  and  said  so,  candidly. 
And  yet  he  had  taken  it  for  granted  that  Holmes 
would  want  it.  Possibly  because  he  had  never 
since  his  salad  days — never,  at  least,  since  he 
had  seriously  entered  the  profession  of  letters 
— had  any  work  "rejected."  He  had  come  to 
think  of  his  writing  as  a  merchant  thinks  of  the 
commodity  he  has  to  sell:  as  a  staple — as  so 
much  sugar  or  cotton.  Prices  might  fluctuate, 
of  course;  but  sugar  and  cotton  always  sell. 
So  with  his  work.  For  twenty  years  it  had 
had  a  market  value.  To  sell  a  manuscript  was 
a  matter  of  course;  the  only  element  of  un- 
certainty in  the  transaction  was  the  price; 
better  or  worse,  as  the  case  might  be.  When 
he  wrote  Holmes  that  he  was  not  quite  satisfied 
with  The  White  Feather,  the  idea  of  its  not 
being  published  never  occurred  to  him.  And 
just  now  he  was  in  rather  more  of  a  hurry  to 
publish  than  usual.  His  long  illness  of  two 
years  ago  had  been  a  strain  upon  his  resources, 
jn  that  it  had  meant  nearly  a  year  of  unpro- 
280 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

ductiveness.  He  had,  to  be  sure,  a  little  in- 
come from  his  savings,  but  his  capital  was  very 
small,  for  the  Phillipses  were  of  those  easy  folk 
who  live,  with  perfect  placidity,  up  to  the  limit 
of  an  income  produced  by  labor;  for  them  the 
rainy  day  was  always  too  far  off  to  make  it  seem 
worth  while,  in  fair  weather,  to  raise  clouds  of 
economy.  But  Richard  always  finished  a  novel 
every  eighteen  months  or  so,  and  that  meant  the 
sale  of  serial  rights  for  a  comfortable  sum;  and 
the  book  sales  were  satisfactory,  though  never 
phenomenal.  He  had  very  much  more  than 
a  succes  d'estime,  but  he  did  not  belong  to  the 
period  of  million  -  copy  sales.  However,  he 
earned  enough,  taken  in  connection  with  stray 
articles  and  one  or  two  short  stories  (which 
always  pay  well),  and  with  that  small  and 
pleasant  sum  from  his  investments,  to  get  along 
very  well.  People  thought  him  much  richer 
than  he  was ;  but  certainly  he  managed  to  live  in 
the  kind  of  flat  Agnes  liked ;  and  they  were  able 
to  give  Rosamond  a  "coming  out"  tea;  and 
Agnes  dressed  the  girl  charmingly — and  all 
this  on  a  sum  that  is  large  or  small  according  to 
which  side  of  it  you  place  your  own  income. 
But  Phillips's  long  illness  had  hampered  them  a 
little;  and  the  writing  of  The  White  Feather 
281 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

had  been  a  tour  de  force  to  meet  the  exigencies 
of  the  situation.  As  he  sat  there  in  the  little 
darkening  room,  staring  at  the  dull  white  of  the 
opposite  wall,  he  said  this  to  himself,  as  an 
explanation  and  excuse.  But  as  he  said  it,  it 
seemed  as  if  something  cool  spread  over  his 
whole  body — a  wave  of  fear;  for  the  book  was 
as  good  as  he  could  make  it !  He  had  written 
hurriedly,  to  be  sure,  and  under  pressure;  but 
he  had  never  scamped  his  work  or  been  slip- 
shod about  it.  He  had  done  his  best :  that  was 
the  desperate  truth.  What  was  lacking  was — 
What  was  it?  Had  sickness  touched  him  so 
that  virtue  had  gone  out  of  him?  Was  some 
spring  cut?  The  mechanism,  technically  ex- 
cellent, was  motionless;  there  were  words,  and 
words,  and  words ;  but  the  divine  voice  of  human 
experience  and  passion  was  silent.  Yet  he  had 
done  his  best!  He  knew  it;  and  that  was  why 
his  soul  sickened  within  him. 

Agnes  had  hurried  him  a  little  towards  the 
end,  for  she  was  a  practical  creature.  "We 
should  have  to  move  if  it  were  not  for  The 
White  Feather,"  she  used  to  say,  with  a  sigh  of 
comfortable  assurance  that  they  would  not 
move.  Once,  before  the  story  was  quite  done, 
she  suggested  that  he  should  ask  his  pub- 
282 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

lishers  for  an  advance.  "  People  do  that,"  she 
said. 

"I  don't,"  Richard  said,  mildly. 

But  there  was  no  manner  of  doubt  in  Agnes's 
mind  of  the  ultimate  sale  of  the  book.  "  Only, 
you  ought  to  get  five  times  as  much  as  you  do," 
she  declared.  "They  say  that  woman  who 
wrote  The  Isle  of  Dragons  made  forty  thousand 
dollars." 

"But,  my  dear,  I  couldn't  write  an  Isle  of 
Dragons"  Richard  said,  with  a  droll  look. 

"I  don't  suppose  you  could,"  she  admitted, 
regretfully.  But  she  was  proud  of  his  work, 
or,  rather,  of  his  reputation.  She  kept  all  the 
newspaper  clippings  about  his  books  or  himself ; 
and  it  was  she  who  supplied  his  publishers  with 
photographs  of  "  Phillips  at  work  in  his  library," 
"Phillips  on  his  yacht"  (which  was  a  pleasant 
old  tub  of  a  cat-boat),  "The  apartment-house 
where  Richard  Phillips,  the  distinguished  au- 
thor, spends  his  winters."  Time  was  when 
these  things  had  made  Phillips  wince;  then  he 
had  got  used  to  them,  and  after  awhile  for- 
gotten them.  But  he  was  aware  that  Agnes 
took  notoriety  very  seriously;  to  her  it  meant 
fame.  Of  his  laborious  pages,  of  the  dignity 
and  humanity  and  sweetness  of  his  delicate  in- 
283 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

sight  which  set  him  among  the  elect,  she  was 
affectionately  ignorant;  but  she  was  absolutely 
sure  of  his  literary  rating. 

"  How  am  I  going  to  tell  her?"  he  asked  him- 
self, blankly,  looking  at  that  letter  on  his  blot- 
ting-pad. The  room  had  grown  so  dark  that 
he  could  not  read  it ;  but  he  knew  just  where, 
at  the  top  of  the  third  page,  Holmes  had  writ- 
ten in  his  small,  precise  hand:  "When  I  say 
that  we  must  not  use  it — " 

"Good  God!"  Phillips  said,  under  his  breath, 
"I'm  a  back  number!" 

II 

THE  telling  Agnes  was  a  bad  moment.  Her 
astonishment  and  unbelief  and  anger  were  very 
bad.  He  told  her,  with  an  attempt  to  be  casual, 
when  she  came  into  the  study  to  say  good-night. 
Rosamond  had  come  before  her,  and,  balanced 
on  the  arm  of  her  father's  chair,  kissed  the  thin 
hair  on  the  top  of  his  head,  and  told  him  about 
her  work  that  day  in  the  life  class  at  the  academy. 

"It  wasn't  good,  daddy,  and  I  felt  pretty 
discouraged." 

"It  will  be  better  to-morrow,  Rose  of  the 
World,"  he  said. 

284 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

"Yes,  it  shall  be  better  to-morrow,"  she 
agreed,  cheerfully. 

Phillips  looked  at  the  end  of  his  cigar,  his 
eyes  narrowing.  Would  his  work  be  better 
to-morrow?  Probably  not.  "I  did  my  best 
— my  best,"  he  said  to  himself  again,  with 
that  sick  sinking  of  the  heart.  If  only  he 
could  have  reproached  himself  for  carelessness ; 
but  no,  he  had  done  his  best.  And  it  was 
bad. 

When  Rosamond  went  off  to  bed,  Agnes  came 
in;  and  after  he  had  listened  to  her  complaints 
about  the  janitor  and  the  outrageous  coldness 
of  the  flat — "They  are  just  simply  robbers,  the 
way  they  keep  the  steam-heat  down,"  she  de- 
clared— Phillips  absently  turned  his  cheek  for 
her  good-night  kiss  and  took  up  his  pen.  Then, 
as  if  it  were  an  afterthought : 

"Oh,  by-the-way,  Holmes  doesn't  want  The 
White  Feather." 

"Doesn't  want— The  White  Feather?"  She 
was  shrill  in  her  astonishment. 

"  Well,  it's  rather  below  par,  I  think  myself," 
he  said,  with  elaborate  carelessness. 

"  But,  Dick,  he  told  you  he  wanted  it.  He's 
got  to  take  it!" 

"  No,  he  didn't.  Holmes  is  too  canny  to  buy 
285 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

a  pig  in  a  poke.  He  said  he  'hoped  he  could 
have  it.'  That's  a  different  story." 

"And  he  doesn't  want  it?  He's  crazy,"  she 
said. 

Phillips  put  his  pen  down  and  turned  around 
in  his  creaking  swivel-chair.  "You  are  very 
flattering,  my  dear;  but  the  honest  truth  is,  it 
isn't  good.  Holmes  would  be  a  poor  editor  if 
he  couldn't  see  that,  and  a  poor  friend  if  he 
didn't  tell  me  so." 

"It's  good  enough,"  his  wife  said,  decidedly; 
she  sat  down  in  front  of  the  fire,  and  turned  her 
skirt  back  over  her  knees  so  that  it  should  not 
be  scorched ;  her  honest,  round  face,  usually  rosy 
and  contented,  was  a  little  pale,  and  her  sensible 
gray  eyes,  behind  her  gold-rimmed  glasses,  were 
distinctly  angry.  The  fact  was,  any  delay  in 
the  sale  of  the  manuscript  was  an  inconvenience. 
"  It's  good  enough,"  she  said ; "  I  don't  know  what 
that  man  Holmes  wants !  I  believe  he's  jealous. 
He  simply  is  a  disappointed  man  himself;  he 
couldn't  write  a  popular  book  to  save  his 
life,  and  so  he  took  to  editing  a  magazine — 
a  sort  of  hanging  on  to  the  skirts  of  litera- 
ture. I  never  did  like  him.  Not  want  The 
White  Feather  f  I  tell  you,  he's  perfectly 
crazy!  He  couldn't  write  a  book  like  that 
286 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

to    save   his   life  —  or    The    Isle   of  Dragons, 
either." 

Richard  laughed  out  loud.  How  Holmes 
would  appreciate  that!  If  only  some  other 
woman  had  said  it,  so  that  he  could,  with 
decency,  repeat  it!  "No,"  he  said,  "no,  my 
dear;  I'm  inclined  to  think  Holmes  could  not 
have  written  The  Isle  of  Dragons." 

"Well,"  Agnes  said,  abruptly,  "what  are  you 
going  to  do  about  it?" 

Phillips  was  silent. 

"  It's  very  annoying  to  have  Mr.  Holmes  act 
this  way,"  she  said.  "But  of  course  it  doesn't 
make  any  real  difference;  the  only  bothering 
thing  is  the  delay.  Of  course  you  will  place  the 
story  somewhere,  right  off.  Any  of  the  big 
magazines  will  jump  at  it.  And  I  don't  know, 
Dick,  but  what,  on  the  whole,  it  will  be  better 
for  you.  Mr.  Holmes's  silly  old  magazine  has 
fallen  off  dreadfully  of  late.  He  never  has  any 
timely  articles  on  liquid  air  and  things;  he's 
'way  behind  the  times.  Do  you  know,  I 
shouldn't  wonder  a  bit  if  the  whole  thing  simply 
means  that  they  are  in  a  bad  way  financially 
and  can't  afford  to  pay  your  price,  and  this  is 
their  way  of  getting  out  of  it." 

Phillips    laughed    drearily.     "I    think    our 
287 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

butcher  and  baker  and  candlestick-maker  would 
be  satisfied  with  their  credit,  Agnes,  if  not  with 
ours.  Oh  yes;  I'll  write  The  Caravel  about 
The  White  Feather  to-morrow,  and  ask  if  they 
want  it.  But — it's  pretty  poor  stuff,  Agnes. 
That's  where  the  shoe  pinches.  Bad  work! 
Bad  work!" 

"Oh,  nonsense,  Richard!  Mr.  Holmes's  let- 
ter has  got  on  your  nerves.  It  isn't  any- 
thing of  the  kind.  Perhaps  it  isn't  the  very 
best  thing  you've  ever  done,  but  I  don't  know 
why  you  should  expect  to  be  always  up  to 
concert-pitch.  Nobody  ever  is;  and  it's  good 
enough.  You  will  see  that  the  other  magazines 
won't  be  so  particular." 

He  winced.   "  That's  just  it,"  he  said,  moodily. 

"Now,  Dick,  you  really  are  absurd.  Come! 
Go  to  bed;  you  will  be  more  sensible  in  the 
morning."  She  got  up,  anxious  to  cheer  him, 
but  a  little  impatient,  too.  "You  mustn't  be 
foolish,  Richard,"  she  said,  decidedly. 

He  slowly  turned  down  the  student's  lamp 
on  the  writing-table,  and  then  blew  it  out.  She 
heard  him  sigh.  "  I  wish  I  didn't  have  to 
publish  it  at  all,"  he  said.  At  that  his  wife  was 
genuinely  disturbed. 

"I  believe  you're  not  well,  Richard.  Have 
288 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

you  taken  cold  ?  You've  just  got  to  stop  wear- 
ing those  low  shoes  in  December.  And  I'll 
tell  you  what — you've  got  to  take  some  quinine. 
I  know  you've  taken  cold." 

"Oh,  I  don't  want  any  quinine,"  he  said, 
wearily. 

But  Agnes  was  firm.  "Yes,  you  do.  I'm 
perfectly  certain  you've  taken  cold." 

"Oh,  really,  my  dear,"  he  protested,  "I 
would  rather — ' 

"My  dear,  it  isn't  a  question  of  what  you'd 
rather  do,"  Agnes  interrupted,  reprovingly. 
And  when  they  went  to  their  room  she  counted 
out  eight  grains,  which  Richard,  faintly  armised, 
swallowed  for  the  sake  of  peace. 

Ill 

THE  next  morning  things  did  look  brighter. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  quinine ;  perhaps  it  was  the 
beautiful,  endless  drift  of  blowing  shadows  on 
the  opposite  white  wall ;  perhaps  it  was  Rosa- 
mond's quick-hearted  courage  about  his  book. 
Her  mother  had  told  her  of  Mr.  Holmes's  letter 
before  Richard  came  in  to  breakfast ;  and  after- 
wards she  slipped  into  the  study  and  gave  him 
a  quick  squeeze  and  hurried  kiss. 
289 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

"I'm  late  and  I've  got  to  tear;  but  I  know 
just  how  you  feel,  daddy.  And  the  next  book, 
I  do  believe,  will  be  the  finest  thing  you  ever 
did  in  all  your  born  days,  because,  you  old 
stupid,  darling  father,  what  have  you  told  me 
sixty  times  about  my  silly  drawing?  'When 
you  can  see  it  is  bad,  you  can  make  it  better. 
It's  when  it  seems  perfect  that  you  are  lost*  What 
is  sauce  for  the  goose,  sir — " 

"Well,  the  goose  is  saucy  enough,  anyhow," 
he  retorted,  laughing.  "  Come,  clear  out,  Good- 
for-nothing!" 

When  she  had  left  him,  he  did  feel  the  com- 
fort of  knowing  that  his  dissatisfaction  was 
his  salvation.  He  knew  The  White  Feather  was 
poor  work.  But  there  was  a  deeper  depth, 
which,  thank  Heaven !  he  had  not  reached — the 
depth  of  not  knowing  it  was  poor;  the  deepest 
deep,  of  thinking  it  was  good.  No;  his  critical 
faculty  was  unimpaired ;  therein,  he  said  to  him- 
self, was  his  hope;  therein,  also,  was  his  agony. 

For,  taking  the  manuscript  up  that  morning, 
with  a  view  to  seeing  how  he  could  improve  it, 
he  saw  that  it  could  not  be  improved.  It  was  a 
body  of  death.  By  a  trick  of  style  it  was 
galvanized,  now  and  then,  and  made  the  gest- 
ures of  life.  But  it  was  dead.  The  situation 
290 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

was  not  one  which  labor  could  remedy.  One 
may  toil  endlessly  to  polish  a  pine  board. 
Richard  Phillips  had  seen  color  and  texture  and 
noble  grain  come  to  the  suface  under  his  care- 
ful, polishing  hand  too  often  not  to  realize  that 
time  would  be  wasted  here.  He  groaned  under 
his  breath  after  awhile  and  threw  the  thing  down 
on  the  table.  "No  use,"  he  said  to  himself; 
"no  use."  He  put  the  manuscript  away,  as  if 
anxious  to  get  it  out  of  his  sight,  and  called  to 
his  wife  that  he  was  going  out  to  walk.  But 
she  delayed  him  a  moment  to  remind  him  of 
a  tea  to  which  he  must  take  Rosamond  that 
afternoon. 

"I  can't  go,"  she  said.  "I  have  a  cold,  and 
I  won't  go  out  in  this  horrid  weather ;  though 
I'm  sure  I  might  as  well  go  out  as  live  in  this 
barn.  Those  steam-heaters  are  like  ice." 

"We  might  use  them  for  refrigerators,"  he 
said,  whimsically.  "Agnes,  I  think  I  won't  go 
to  the  tea.  Rosy  won't  mind  going  by  her- 
self." 

"7  mind  for  her,"  Agnes  said,  with  decision. 
"And,  anyway,  Richard,  you  really  ought  to 
go.  It's  good  for  your  books ;  you  must  be  seen 
about,  you  know;  especially  now." 

"Why  now?"  he  said;  and  wished  he  had  not 
291 


R.  J.'S    MOTHER 

said  it.  He  knew  why,  even  before  her  ex- 
planation. 

"  Oh  well,  its  a  good  while  since  you've  pub- 
lished a  book;  and  people  forget  so;  and  new 
people  come  up,  you  know.  That  Dragon 
woman — everybody  is  talking  about  her  book. 
Yes;  you  ought  to  be  seen,  now." 

"But  I  loathe  teas,  Agnes,"  he  said,  wearily; 
"they  are  of  the  devil." 

"Now,  don't  be  foolish,  Dick,"  she  said,  im- 
patiently. "What  difference  does  it  make 
whether  you  enjoy  them  or  not?  Enjoyment 
isn't  everything,  my  dear.  You  want  to  sell 
your  books,  don't  you?  You  go  to  one  of  these 
things,  and  people  see  you  and  talk  about  you; 
and  then  your  books  sell.  Rosamond  will  meet 
you  there  at  five.  And  do  stay  a  little  while, 
Dick ;  don't  dart  out  the  minute  you  have  said 
'How  do  you  do?' — I  know  you,"  she  ended, 
laughing. 

"Well,"  he  said,  helplessly,  "tell  Rosamond 
I'll  be  there  at  five."  Then  he  went  out  to  take 
his  walk.  The  fresh  air,  and  later  the  flattery 
of  some  deference  from  a  stranger  whom  he  met 
at  the  tea,  brought  a  certain  rebound  of  hope ; 
in  fact,  his  spirits  had  sunk  so  low  that  a  re- 
bound was  inevitable,  and  he  began  to  argue 
292 


THE   WHITE    FEATHER 

to  himself  that  he  could  not  be  a  good  judge 
of  his  own  work.  As  for  Holmes — he  winced; 
well,  he  had,  perhaps,  unconsciously  prejudiced 
Holmes  just  a  little.  The  work  was  not  his 
best ;  of  course  he  knew  that.  But  it  was  not — 
not  so  very  bad.  Anyhow,  it  was  only  fair 
to  himself  to  get  another  opinion.  He  would 
try  some  other  magazine. 

"And  I'll  abide  by  their  judgment,"  he  told 
himself.  "  If  they  don't  want  it — "  But  imag- 
ination turned  sick  at  that. 

He  went  home  and  wrote  his  letter.  Did 
Messrs.  So-and-so  care  to  consider  a  novel  of 
his,  just  finished,  for  serial  pnblication  in  18 — , 
etc.  The  reply  was  prompt  and  flattering: 
Messrs.  So-and-so  would  be  extremely  glad  to 
see  the  manuscript  of  Mr.  Phillips's  new  novel; 
and  they  begged  to  assure  him  that  they  greatly 
appreciated  his  courtesy  in  writing  them.  They 
would  send  an  immediate  reply. 

"What  did  I  tell  you?"  cried  Agnes,  trium- 
phantly. 

"My  dear,"  he  said,  "don't  count  your 
chickens— 

But  his  wife  laughed.  "  Dick,  you  really  are 
a  great  goose.  You  haven't  had  a  thing  refused 
in  twenty  years,  and  here  you  are  as  scared 
293 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

as  a  school-girl  who  sends  her  first  poem  to  an 
editor.  Did  you  tie  your  manuscript  up  in  pink 
ribbons?  That  is  what  the  school-girl  does." 

But  Phillips  would  not  be  cheered;  he  had 
sunk  back  into  the  melancholy  of  his  own 
judgment.  "Very  likely  they'll  take  it,"  he 
admitted;  "but  the  sale  of  a  work  of  art  does 
not  imply  its  worth." 

At  which  Agnes  lost  her  patience  a  little. 
"My  dear,  there's  too  much  talk  about  art. 
I  prefer  common-sense  and  a  bank -account. 
Don't  you,  Rosy?" 

Rosamond  laughed  and  said  that,  fortunately, 
Daddy  was  able  to  combine  all  these  important 
things. 

"  Well,  to  come  back  to  earth,"  Agnes  said, 
good-naturedly,  "Richard,  you  must  go  down- 
stairs and  blow  the  clerk  up.  I  rang  for  the 
elevator  five  times — five  times,  if  you  please — 
before  that  wretched  Charley  saw  fit  to  come 
up.  He  was  loafing  down  in  the  cellar  with  the 
engineer.  I  won't  stand  it.  It's  perfectly  out- 
rageous. And  he  treats  us  so  only  because 
we're  on  the  top  floor  and  he  thinks  we're  not 
important  tenants.  I  want  you  to  go  down 
and  just  make  a  fuss.  I've  talked  till  I'm 
tired." 

294 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

"Oh,  I  guess  it  won't  happen  again,"  Phillips 
said,  vaguely. 

"  No ;  because  we  will  make  a  row.  Now  go, 
dear,  right  off." 

"I — don't  believe  its  necessary,"  he  said, 
hesitating.  "I  guess  it  will  be  all  right." 

"Richard,  that  is  very  wrong  in  you,"  she 
told  him,  seriously.  "It's  just  the  American 
man  all  over.  He  refuses  to  kick,  and  every- 
thing goes  wrong.  You  ought  to  have  more 
sense  of  responsibility.  Now,  do  go  —  and 
just  make  things  unpleasant  for  that  horrid 
boy." 

"But,  Agnes,  really,  I— I'd  rather  not;  I—" 

"Oh,  Dick,  now  don't  be  silly!  You  are 
so  weak-minded  in  such  things.  I  can't  under- 
stand it;  I  never  have  the  least  difficulty  in 
finding  fault.  And,  really,  I  must  say,  con- 
sidering the  annoyance  to  me  of  that  boy's 
impertinence,  you  ought  to  put  a  stop  to  it. 
Rosamond  rang  three  times  yesterday  before 
he  came  up." 

Phillips  sighed.  "Well,"  he  said,  "I'll  go." 
He  got  up,  but  he  made  two  or  three  pottering 
excuses  before  he  wandered  down  to  the  en- 
trance-hall. There,  leaning  on  the  counter, 
fingering  a  magazine,  he  told  the  clerk  that  it 
295 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

was  a  cold  day;  then  he  gave  him  a  cigar,  and 
observed  that  Charley  was  a  nice  boy. 

"We  keep  him  busy,  don't  we?"  he  said. 
"  Sometimes  he  seems  rather  long  getting  up  to 
our  cockloft." 

The  clerk  laughed,  and  said  that  was  a  new 
name  for  the  top  floor;  and  Richard,  looking 
over  his  shoulder  at  young  Charles,  slumbering 
for  the  moment  on  the  plush  cushions  of  his 
cage,  said  that  if  Mercury  would  please  come 
to  life,  he  would  like  to  go  up-stairs;  "and  look 
here,  young  man,"  he  reproached  him,  "don't 
you  think  this  machine  is  rather  slow  in  getting 
up  to  my  floor?"  He  accompanied  the  re- 
proach with  half  a  dollar ;  upon  which  Charles 
yawned  affectionately,  and  admitted  that  the 
elevator  was  kind  a*  slow;  "everything  in  this 
old  shack  is  a  back  number, ' '  Charles  complained. 
Phillips,  stepping  out  into  the  tiny  dark  hall, 
cringed  at  those  two  words.  He  said  them 
over  to  himself  as  he  sneaked  into  his  writing- 
room,  avoiding  the  parlor  for  fear  Agnes  would 
want  a  report  of  the  row.  When  she  did  ask 
for  it,  at  dinner,  her  wrath  had  cooled,  and  he 
was  able  to  leave  it  to  her  imagination  after  a 
word  or  two  to  the  effect  that  he  "guessed 
Charley  would  do  better  now." 
296 


THE   WHITE    FEATHER 

"That's  good,"  Agnes  said,  approvingly;  "a 
good  blowing-up  once  in  a  while  makes  things 
better."  Then  she  looked  at  him  solicitously, 
and  said  he  was  pale.  "  You  are  worrying  about 
The  White  Feather"  she  said;  "it  will  be  all 
right,  dear.  Now,  don't  think  of  it." 

"Oh  yes,  it  will  be  all  right,"  he  agreed, 
quickly.  He  did  not  want  to  talk  about  it. 
He  was  still  sore  from  the  shock  of  Holmes's 
letter,  and  he  preferred  to  forget  The  White 
Feather  until  he  heard  from  the  editor  to 
whom  he  had  sent  it — which,  indeed,  he  was 
long  in  doing.  Nearly  a  month  passed  before 
a  reply  came.  Richard  was  not  used  to  such 
delay,  and  it  fretted  him;  once  he  had  a  sudden 
cold  perspiration  of  fear  that  the  answer  would 
be  a  rejection.  But  that  was  at  night — at 
midnight,  in  fact — when  he  was  lying  awake 
thinking  of  the  story. 

"  If  McDonald  has  any  literary  sense,  he  will 
decline  it,"  he  said,  heavily,  to  himself. 

And  the  very  next  day  McDonald's  literary 
sense  was  displayed.  He  was  very  sorry,  but 
he  felt  that  just  at  present  it  was  undesirable  to 
publish  a  serial  on  the  lines  of  T\ie  White 
Feather.  The  book  was  most  charming  (as 
was  all  of  Mr.  Phillips' s  work),  and  he  was  very 
297 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

greatly  obliged  to  him  for  permitting  him  to  see 
the  manuscript;  but  he  had  hoped  that  the  work 
was  on  Mr.  Phillips's  usual  lines,  in  which  case 
he  would  have  been  exceedingly  glad  to  publish 
it;  as  it  was,  he  feared  he  must  decline,  though 
with  very  great  regret.  He  hoped  Mr.  Phillips 
would  permit  him  to  consider  his  next  novel, 
and  he  was,  sincerely,  Mr.  Phillips's  "obt. 
servt." 

Richard  Phillips  put  the  letter  back  into 
the  envelope  and  handed  it  to  his  wife,  in 
silence.  While  she  read  it  he  stood  at  the 
window  with  his  back  to  her,  watching  the 
blowing  shadows  on  the  opposite  wall.  He 
heard  her  pull  the  typewritten  sheet  out  of 
the  envelope  and  unfold  it.  Then  he  heard  a 
quick,  indrawn  breath. 

"McDonald  shows  his  sense,"  he  said. 

"He's  crazy,"  Agnes  said. 

He  turned  and  looked  at  her  pityingly.  Her 
pride  was  hard  hit,  and  he  was  sorry  for  her. 
He  felt  dully  indifferent  himself.  McDonald 
had  shown  his  sense. 

"  I  have  a  higher  opinion  of  that  young  man 
than  I  had,"  he  said,  listlessly.  But  he  was 
sorry  for  Agnes. 

"Well,  all  is,  we'll  try  So-and-so,"  she  said, 
298 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

violently.     "I  believe  it's  Mr.  Holmes's  fault; 
he  has  told  McDonald,  and  McDonald — " 

"Now,  Agnes,  you  know  Holmes  wouldn't 
do  that.  My  dear,  it's  poor  work,  that's  the 
amount  of  it.  And  Holmes  sees  it,  and  Mc- 
Donald sees  it,  and  you  see  it,  and  I  see  it. 
What's  the  use  of  bothering  with  it?" 

"Use?"  she  said,  hysterically.  "In  the  first 
place,  I  hate  them  for  daring  to  criticise  you." 

Richard  laughed  and  came  and  put  his  hand 
on  her  shoulder  kindly ;  it  was  like  the  old  days 
—days  not  more  loving,  perhaps,  but  more  ex- 
pressive. 

"Who  will  take  it?"  she  said,  after  a  pause. 

"The  Lord  knows.  If  I  were  an  editor,  I 
wouldn't." 

"Oh,"  she  said,  sharply,  "how  can  you  be  so 
foolish?  You  know  your  name  would  sell  it, 
even  if  it  were — twice  as  poor." 

"I  have  never  knowingly  sold  a  gold  brick, 
Agnes." 

She  did  not  answer,  for  she  hardly  heard  him ; 
she  was  frowning  nervously,  evidently  trying  to 
make  up  her  mind.  "Where  shall  we  send  it 
next?" 

"  I'm  not  going  to  send  it  anywhere." 

"Richard!" 

299 


R.  J/S   MOTHER 

Then  he  tried  to  explain. 

"To  take  money  for  poor  stuff  is  dishonest." 

"  If  a  magazine  wants  poor  stuff,  that's  not 
your  business!" 

"Isn't  it?"  he  said,  gently. 

"Anyway,  it's  not  poor  stuff." 

"Yes,  it  is,"  Phillips  said,  "and  I'm  not  go- 
ing to  print  it  at  all.  I  don't  think  any  maga- 
zine of  standing  would  take  it.  Of  course,  I 
could  publish  it  at  once  in  book  form;  but  I 
won't." 

"Oh,  book  form!"  she  said.  "That  doesn't 
pay  nearly  as  well." 

"That's  not  the  point,"  he  said.  "I  don't 
want  to  sell — trash." 

She  looked  at  him  blankly.  For  a  curious 
minute  the  man  and  the  woman,  face  to  face 
in  the  grimy,  cluttered  little  room,  stared  at 
each  other  like  two  strangers.  Then  she  be- 
gan to  protest,  violently.  At  that  he  turned 
away,  wincing,  with  a  cringing,  sidewise  look, 
even  with  a  faint  snarl — like  a  dog  who  would 
not  be  parted  from  his  bone. 

"  I  won't  publish  it  in  any  form.     We  are  not 

really  hard  up ;  we  are  not  in  debt.     If  we  were 

in  debt,  why,  perhaps— well,  I  might  exchange 

one  kind  of   honesty  for   another.     But  you 

300 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

needn't  worry.  I'll  earn  the  money.  I  can  go 
into  an  office  and  do  clerical  work ;  I  know  fel- 
lows that  would  give  me  a  job.  We  may  have 
to  retrench  a  little,  but  I  can  earn  the  money. 
I  will  do  any  decent  work  you  want  me  to; 
but  I  won't  publish  The  White  Feather." 

His  tall,  thin  figure  wavered  as  he  spoke,  and 
his  hands  opened  and  shut  nervously.  Had 
Agnes  had  the  presence  of  mind  to  strike  some 
quick  blow,  had  she  burst  into  tears,  he  might, 
perhaps,  through  mere  physical  weakness,  have 
surrendered.  But  she  was  not  the  crying  kind. 
She  grew  white,  and  dared  not  trust  herself  to 
speak  for  a  minute,  then  she  said: 

"  I  hope  you  will  see  this  more  reasonably  in 
the  morning,  Richard,"  and  left  him  in  his 
dark  little  room,  before  the  dreary  disorder  of 
his  work-table. 

For  several  days  the  Phillipses  were  very 
wretched.  Richard  shut  himself  up  in  the 
study  from  morning  until  night.  He  told 
Rosamond  that  he  had  begun  a  new  book. 

"It  will  take  him  a  year  to  write  it,"  Agnes 
said,  with  a  frightened  look.  "  What  shall  we 
do?" 

"Move,"  Rosamond  said,  gayly. 

"  I'll  never  consent  to  it,"  her  1[ndth&  de- 
301 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

clared,  her  round,  anxious  face  reddening  slow- 
ly with  anger.  "  We  are  just  settled  here,  and 
we  are  going  to  stay.  If  your  father  would 
only  push  about,  he  could  place  The  White 
Feather.  But  he  won't." 

Rosamond  looked  grave.  "I  don't  see  how 
he  can  push  about.  If  it  isn't  father's  best 
work  (and  maybe  it  isn't),  ought  he  to  publish 
it?  It  might  be  bad  for  his  reputation." 

"He  cares  more  for  his  reputation  than  he 
does  for  us!" 

"Oh,  mother,  you  know  he  doesn't." 

"Well,"  Mrs.  Phillips  amended,  moodily,  "I 
sometimes  think  he  cares  more  for  what  he 
calls  his  art  than  he  does  for  us." 

Rosamond  was  silent. 

They  did  not  move,  after  all.  Agnes  was  so 
bitterly  opposed  to  it  that,  instead,  she  vent- 
ured the  extravagance  of  experimenting  with 
various  economies.  For  a  time  their  table  was 
distinctly  less  good,  and  she  dismissed  the 
second  servant,  and  mentioned  the  fact  daily 
to  her  husband.  As  for  Phillips,  he  set  him- 
self heart  and  soul  upon  his  new  book. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  they  had  news 
of  the  mine  in  which  Richard  had  rashly  (and 
most  characteristically)  invested  nearly  two- 
302 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

thirds  of  his  savings;  a  dividend  was  to  be 
passed.  Agnes  grew  keenly  anxious.  She  hur- 
ried her  husband  a  good  deal  on  the  new  story, 
for  they  were  getting  a  little  straitened.  Occa- 
sionally she  harked  back  to  The  White  Feath- 
er, and  fretted  because  he  did  not  bring  it 
out  in  book  form ;  and  sometimes  she  burst  out 
that  if  he  would  only  push  about  he  could  get 
one  of  the  magazines  to  take  it.  Indeed,  se- 
cretly, she  offered  it  to  one  periodical,  only  to 
have  it  returned — returned,  too,  with  a  com- 
ment which  made  her  pale  with  rage.  She 
never  told  Richard  of  this  experience,  but  she 
ceased  to  prod  him  about  the  magazines. 

"  You  could  bring  it  out  in  book  form,  but 
you  won't,"  she  would  say  over  and  over. 

"  No,  I  won't,"  he  would  answer,  doggedly. 

Then  she  would  begin  to  argue.  This  was 
terrible  to  Richard.  For  twenty  years  it  had 
been  his  gently  indolent  habit  to  buy  his  peace 
by  yielding ;  and  now,  suddenly,  he  found  him- 
self bankrupt  of  the  price  of  peace — he  could 
not  yield.  And  peace  passed  him  by.  In  the 
struggle  between  the  husband  and  wife,  Agnes's 
rosy,  sensible  face  aged  perceptibly;  and  as  for 
Phillips,  his  very  soul  panted  with  the  deadly 
wrestling — wrestling  with  long-atrophied  spirit- 
303 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

ual  muscle.  During  their  arguments  (in  which, 
indeed,  too  often  they  could  not  speak  the  same 
language)  Agnes  generally  seemed  to  get  the 
better  of  him.  She,  somehow,  always  drove  him 
into  a  final  corner,  where,  at  bay,  his  back  to 
the  wall,  he  could  only  make  a  frantic  declara- 
tion of  artistic  honesty.  When  this  point  was 
reached  he  would  repeat,  dully,  "  Well,  I  won't 
do  it — so  there',"  When  a  mild,  sweet-natured 
man  gets  to  the  point  of  saying  to  his  wife  pas- 
sionately, "so  there!"  things  are  in  a  bad  way. 
Richard  would  follow  this  dogged  assertion  by 
flight  to  his  study  and  a  vicious  snapping  of  the 
bolt. 

Then,  one  day,  something  happened.  The 
letter  came  in  the  morning  mail  with  a  sheaf 
of  bills,  and  Agnes,  frowning,  gathered  them 
up  to  open  when  she  was  by  herself.  The  im- 
print on  the  upper  left-hand  corner  of  the  en- 
velope did  not  move  her  to  any  attention,  as 
she  took  it  for  granted  that  it  was  the  usual  cir- 
cular or  leaflet;  she  opened  it  idly  and  rather 
by  chance.  But  the  engraved  letter-heading 
caught  her  eye,  and  gave  her  a  shock  of  interest. 
She  read  breathlessly,  turning  a  little  pale,  and 
at  the  end  suddenly  burst  out  crying.  She  ran 
with  it  to  Richard's  study,  and,  dropping  down 
304 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

on  her  knees  beside  his  chair,  put  her  arm 
around  him,  half  sobbing  and  half  laughing. 

"  There !  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  Seven  thou- 
sand dollars  for  entire  rights!" 

"What?"  Phillips  said,  with  a  dazed  look, 
putting  down  his  pen  and  coming  out  of  his 
dream-world.  "What?"  He  took  his  glasses 
off,  and  blinked  and  rubbed  his  hand  across 
his  eyes  as  if  he  were  waking  up. 

"Look!  Read  that!"  she  said,  putting  the 
letter  down  on  the  sheet  of  yellow  manuscript 
paper  on  which  he  was  at  work,  and  smoothing 
it  out  with  a  trembling  hand.  Richard  fumbled 
for  his  glasses  and  put  them  on  again.  The  let- 
ter was  brief  and  to  the  point : 

"DEAR  SIR, — We  are  informed  that  you  have  late- 
ly finished  a  novel.  We  should  be  glad  to  purchase 
book  and  serial  rights  for  the  sum  of  $7000. 

"Yours  truly, 

(i  _. » 

"Oh,  Dick,"  Agnes  said,  "what  a  relief  it  is! 
Oh,  I — I  can  hardly  believe  it!  Just  think! 
I  thought  it  was  a  circular  or  something,  and 
almost  threw  it  into  the  waste-basket." 

The  bitterness  and  misunderstanding  which 
lay  between  them  like  some  dull  and  heavy 
305 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

fog  seemed  suddenly  to  clear  and  roll  away; 
her  ruddy,  resolute  face,  in  its  relief  and  pride, 
was  full  of  the  kindness  of  all  their  married 
life. 

"But,  Agnes,"  he  said,  "Agnes — " 

"Will  you  take  it  to  their  office  this  after- 
noon ?  Or  would  you  rather  send  a  messenger  ? 
Perhaps  it  is  more  dignified  to  send  a  mes- 
senger." 

"  Agnes,"  he  said,  "  don't  you  see  these  people 
simply  want  my  name?" 

"Your  name?  Well,  I  suppose  they  do.  I 
should  think  they  would!  It  will  make  them 
seem  a  little  more  respectable." 

"And  how  will  it  make  me  seem?"  He  took 
his  glasses  off  again  and  looked  at  her  steadily. 

"Richard!" 

"  Why,  Agnes,  what  difference  does  this  offer 
make?  We've  gone  all  over  it.  This  doesn't 
alter  things.  Don't  you  see  ?  It  doesn't  make 
any  difference." 

"Do  you  mean — is  it  possible  you  dream — 
when  we  need — Richard,  you  are  insane.  It's 
just  what  I  said:  you  value  your  name,  as  you 
call  it,  more  than — than  Rosamond  and  me!" 
The  fog  shut  down  again;  she  drew  away  from 
him  in  a  sort  of  cold  horror.  "You  have  no 
306 


'AGNES,  i  CAN'T  HKLP  IT,'  HK  SAID,  PASSIONATELY.      'OH,  IK   YOU 

COULD    ONLY     UNDERSTAND!'" 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

excuse  now  for  not  publishing  it.  If  anybody 
wants  it,  that  is  their  business." 

"My  business  is  to  sell  straight  goods,"  he 
said,  trying  to  smile. 

But  her  face  was  hard. 

"To  refuse  to  take  money  when  we  need 
money  is  wicked.  It  is  like  throwing  it  away; 
it's  like  burning  it  up.  And  it  is  cruel  to  Rosa- 
mond. I  don't  say  anything  about  myself — 
that  wouldn't  influence  you." 

"Agnes,  I  can't  help  it,"  he  said,  passionately. 
"  Oh,  if  you  could  only  understand!"  He  drop- 
ped his  face  in  his  hands ;  she  felt  him  shiver. 

She  rose  from  her  knees  beside  him  and  stood 
by  the  table ;  once  her  lips  parted  to  speak,  then 
she  set  them  hard  together,  and  a  moment  later, 
without  a  word,  left  him. 

Alone,  in  the  exhaustion  of  his  soul,  he 
dropped  his  head  on  his  arms  on  the  desk 
and  sat  quite  motionless  for  a  long  time.  Then 
it  came  over  him,  with  a  sudden  terror,  that 
she  might  come  back.  He  had  not  the  strength 
for  another  struggle.  So,  trembling  with  haste, 
he  got  up  and  went  stealthily  into  the  little 
entry,  fumbling  about  on  the  settle  in  the  half- 
darkness  for  his  coat  and  hat ;  finding  them,  he 
noiselessly  let  himself  out  on  to  the  landing. 
3°7 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

There  was  a  minute's  wait  for  the  elevator, 
and  it  came  into  his  mind  that  he  wished  he  had 
blown  Charley  up  for  his  slowness.  He  looked 
over  his  shoulder  once  or  twice,  nervously,  but 
no  one  called  after  him;  and  in  the  gilded  and 
mirrored  cage  he  dropped  swiftly  down  to  the 
entrance,  whose  magnificence  was  the  sign  of 
the  grandeur  and  fashion  of  the  building,  which 
meant  so  much  to  Agnes.  On  the  outer  steps, 
in  the  darkening  afternoon,  the  drizzle  of  fine 
rain  came  like  a  cool  hand  upon  his  hot  face. 
He  drew  a  great  breath  of  relief ;  and  then,  for- 
getting to  put  up  his  umbrella,  he  stepped  out 
onto  the  wet  pavement  into  the  hurrying 
crowd.  Drifting  with  it,  -a  momentary  calm 
of  great  fatigue  fell  upon  him.  Once  or  twice 
he  panted  a  little,  as  if  he  had  run  a  long  dis- 
tance and  was  pausing  for  strength  before 
entering  the  race  again — for,  indeed,  the  goal 
was  not  reached.  Would  it  ever  be  reached? 
With  that  offer  open,  would  Agnes  ever  give  up? 
A  black  stream  of  bobbing  umbrellas  jostling 
and  poking  one  another,  pushed  him  to  the 
edge  of  the  crowd,  and  he  found  himself  stand- 
ing before  a  brilliant  shop-window,  staring  in  at 
the  array  of  color  and  electric  lights  and  Christ- 
mas holly. 

308 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

"  I  will  not  publish  it,"  he  said  to  himself.  .  . , 
"She  will  make  me,"  something  else  said,  in  the 
back  of  his  mind. 

Then  he  began  his  aimless  walk  again,  carried 
along  with  the  crowd,  brushed  sometimes  by 
an  eddy  into  a  doorway  or  round  a  corner; 
hustled  a  little,  and  turned  about  occasionally ; 
looking  absently  into  the  brightly  lighted  win- 
dows, or  watching  the  sudden,  sizzling  flare 
of  the  arc-lamps  far  up  in  the  rainy  darkness 
overhead.  The  long  lines  of  the  street-lights, 
gleaming  and  glittering  on  the  wet  pavement, 
gave  him  a  certain  faint  pleasure,  and  the 
pounding  of  the  horses'  feet  on  the  slippery 
asphalt  seemed  to  fall  into  a  curious  rhythm, 
so  that  he  found  himself  keeping  time  with 
Quadrupedante  putrem  sonitu.  .  .  .  The  mist  had 
thickened  into  rain,  and  he  was  suddenly  aware 
that  his  coat  was  very  wet;  he  put  up  his  um- 
brella in  a  shamefaced  way,  for  he  thought  he 
must  have  looked  like  a  crazy  man,  standing 
about  with  a  closed  umbrella.  With  this  bit  of 
common-sense,  courage  began  to  stir, 

"I  will  not  do  it,"  he  said  again;  but  still 
there  was  the  whisper  underneath:  "She  will 
make  me." 

He  began  to  drift  with  the  crowd:  up  one 
309 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

side  of  the  street,  back  on  the  other  side;  a 
dozen  blocks  down;  across;  slowly  back  again 
to  the  square.  Then  he  noticed  that  it  was 
growing  colder;  the  rain  was  changing  into 
snow  —  wet,  heavy  flakes  that  could  not  be 
shaken  off.  He  stopped  under  an  electric  light 
and  held  out  his  arm  to  let  them  fall  upon  his 
sleeve.  He  stood  there  a  full  minute,  forgetful 
of  the  surge  of  human  life,  looking  in  absorbed 
joy  at  those  exquisite  hexagonals  of  purity 
and  law;  he  even,  in  the  bliss  of  watching  this 
vanishing  beauty,  forgot  Agnes's  face.  But 
that  was  only  for  an  instant;  her  set  lips  and 
sensible  eyes,  hard  and  determined,  behind  her 
glasses,  came  into  his  mind  like  a  blow.  The 
dazzle  of  the  street-lamps  had  softened  into  a 
whirl  of  white,  and  he  shivered,  realizing  that 
he  was  very  damp  and  chilly ;  but  still  he  stood 
there,  under  the  great  arc-lamp  that  set  vast 
shadows  seesawing  across  the  crowding  clamor 
of  the  square,  and  watched  the  big  flakes  settle 
on  his  sleeve. 

"  I  will  not"  he  was  saying  to  himself;  and — 
"She  will  make  me"  came,  over  and  over,  the 
terrified  answer. 

By-and-by,  automatically,  he  began  to  drift 
again,  and  this  time  the  misery  of  the  wet  cold 
310 


THE   WHITE   FEATHER 

pushed  him  towards  the  vast  and  foolish  fagade 
of  his  hotel.  But  when  he  reached  it  he  turned 
and  walked  the  length  of  the  block  and  back; 
and  as  he  walked  he  suddenly  paused,  and, 
standing  stock-still,  laughed  aloud.  A  man, 
passing,  looked  at  him  curiously  through  the 
snow,  and  Phillips,  realizing  what  he  had  done, 
laughed  again  under  his  breath.  The  panic 
had  gone  out  of  his  face;  but  it  left  tragedy 
behind  it. 

When  he  finally  entered  his  hotel  and  crept 
into  the  elevator,  Charley  was  plainly  dis- 
pleased with  him. 

"That  there  umbrella  of  yours  is  soakin' 
wet,"  he  said,  looking  disgustedly  at  the 
puddle  on  the  floor. 

Phillips  looked  at  it,  too,  and  smiled  vaguely. 

"So  it  is,"  he  said. 

He  let  himself  into  the  flat  with  his  pass-key 
as  furtively  as  he  had  gone  out;  and  he  opened 
and  shut  his  study  door  without  noise.  The 
room  was  quite  dark,  except  for  a  wink  of  fire 
on  the  hearth.  He  did  not  stop  to  take  off 
his  wet  coat  and  hat,  but  went  hurriedly  to 
the  drawer  into  which  The  White  Feather  had 
been  thrust  after  its  last  fruitless  journey. 
He  felt  about  in  the  darkness  until  his  hand 
3" 


R.  J.'S   MOTHER 

touched  the  manuscript.  Then  he  crouched 
down  on  his  heels  in  front  of  the  fire,  and  thrust 
some  paper  and  a  stick  of  pitch-pine  against 
the  spark  that  was  flickering  under  the  half- 
burned  log;  he  fumbled  about  for  the  bellows 
and  blew  softly  until  the  spark  winked  and 
widened  and  died  down;  then  the  paper  caught, 
and  there  was  a  sudden  flame  and  a  little  roar. 
In  a  tninute  or  two  the  room  Was  jocund  with 
lurching  lights  and  shadows.  Phillips  put  the 
bellows  down  and  took  up  The  White  Feather. 
He  laid  it  on  the  log,  and  as  a  page  caught, 
scorched,  and  broke  into  flame — he  smiled  and 
drew  a  long  breath. 

By-and-by  he  got  up;  and,  still  in  his  dripping 
coat,  with  one  hand  on  the  mantel-piece,  he 
stood  and  Watched  the  burning.  Page  after 
page  curled  as  the  fire  ran  licking  across  it; 
sometimes  he  could  see  a  word  or  even  a  whole 
line.  It  took  a  long  time  to  burn.  Twice  he 
had  to  stir  it  and  turn  it  over  and  loosen  the 
sheets  with  the  poker  so  that  they  might  catch 
again  and  roar  into  flame.  When  it  was  done, 
a  black,  crumpled,  brittle  mass  lay  On  the  ashes, 
moving  and  rustling  a  little  in  the  draught  of  the 
chimney.  Circles  of  red  spread  in  it  here  and 
there,  and  then  charred  into  blackness ;  once  he 
312 


THE   WHITE    FEATHER 

saw,  suddenly,  some  typewritten  letters  shining 
in  faint  purple,  then  vanishing,  as  the  thought 
for  which  they  stood  had  vanished. 

It  was  done.  He  brought  the  poker  down 
on  the  curling  heap,  and  it  broke  into  flying, 
black  flakes.  He  stirred  them  up,  pushing  them 
back  under  the  log  and  hiding  them  as  best  he 
could. 

"7  will  not!"  he  said  to  himself,  trium- 
phantly. 

And  this  time  there  was  no  response. 


THE    END 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000164604     1 


